Friday, July 22, 2022

Nairobi, Kenya

SECRETARY MARGARET KOBIA: This morning, the Government of Kenya and the USAID held a roundtable discussion of the drought and the food security implications and the ongoing response in the country.

The objective of today's meeting is one, understand the current status of drought situation in the country; two, draw international attention to the drought situation in Kenya and the Horn of Africa; three, share the government added pertinent intervention in response to reducing drought, one of [inaudible] in Kenya; four, understand the resource gap and the proposed way forward to addressing the drought situation in the both short-, medium-, and long-term. I appreciate the U.S. government for its continued support to Kenya, which is demonstrated today by the high-level USAID delegation led by Administrator Samantha Power.  

This roundtable discussion comes at a time when the added countries are experiencing severe drought, as a result of four successive few rain seasons. The current drought comes against a backdrop of socio-economic stress occasioned by [unintelligible] shocks. And we are still trying to recover from the two year of the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the problem of [inaudible] and global amplification of war in Ukraine, which is also causing trade disruptions and driving up prices of basic food stock and other commodities such as fuel and fertilizer. 

Today, 4.1 million people are facing acute food insecurity in Kenya, up from 3.5 million in March 2022. It is important to note that the number of malnourished children has risen from six out of 6000 in the last three months to nine for the 2000 across the arid and semi-arid lands. Consequently, the Government of Kenya has carried out this drought mitigation effort and to date we have spent approximately in Kenya shillings, 12.6 billion on interventions. This has been achieved through our support and collaboration with development partners, humanitarian agencies, private sector, and other non-state actors. 

However, the persistent drought has left us with a resource gap of more than the Kenya shillings 15 billion for interventions required in the critical sectors of food security, health and nutrition, water, agriculture, livestock, and education. The current challenges notwithstanding, Kenya has made significant progress in managing drought and associated risks. We attribute much of this progress to the policy shift, which has focused on upscaling cash transfer from 700,000 to 905,000 beneficiaries. The city is building an enhanced partnership and coordination and the strengthening early warning system. 

The Government of Kenya appreciates the continued response by international development agencies and humanitarian agencies to compliment the government drought response efforts. As a government, we remain committed to continued partnership for the greater good of our people. 

In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, the government is grateful to USAID and other partners for coming together to support the ongoing government drought response initiative, especially in the focus of resilience building. It is now my pleasure on behalf of [inaudible] to welcome the Administrator Samantha Power to make her remarks. I thank you.  

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Good afternoon, everyone. I'm really grateful for the opportunity to join you today. And I'm very grateful to the Cabinet Secretary. The Cabinet Secretary for Health as well was here earlier as part of our meeting and a number of the principal secretaries in the key departments here in the Kenyan government who have come together in an interagency multisectoral way to try to meet the needs of people who are suffering in these very difficult drought conditions. But not only that, those who are also suffering from the increased fuel, food, and fertilizer prices across Kenya and the broader region.  

I want to thank President Kenyatta for his leadership in steering this great country for the last nine years. And again, Cabinet Secretary Kobia, thank you for welcoming me and my delegation today so that we have been able to discuss and will continue to discuss during our time in Kenya, what more the United States can do to help Kenyans in a great hour of need.  

Just now we discussed again, the historic drought, and know that Kenya, in being part of the Horn of Africa, finds itself really in the epicenter of a much larger global food crisis. Tomorrow, I and my team will have the chance to travel to northern Kenya to see up close how our two countries are working together to help people in distress. 

We already know that the drought is killing livestock. More than 2.4 million livestock in Kenya already taken. Some 7 million in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia. And that is happening, of course, at the same time at least 19 million people in this Horn of Africa region have fallen into a state of severe hunger and have become dependent on humanitarian aid. 

We also know that the challenges that these communities would have faced anyway, because of these extremely difficult weather conditions and the failure of successive rainy seasons here in the Horn, those conditions have been made far worse by Vladimir Putin's brutal war in Ukraine, which has deepened those increases in food, fuel, and fertilizer prices. 

By blockading Ukraine's grain exports and restricting the trade of Russia's own fertilizer, Putin's actions have had the consequence of inflicting pain on the people of Kenya and on other countries throughout the world. He is hurting the people of Kenya in order to benefit his own situation, from his own perspective. 

Here in Kenya, President Kenyatta declared the drought a national disaster in September of last year and made commitments to provide emergency assistance to the affected areas. We appreciate the strong partnership with the Government of Kenya. Given the historic severity of this drought, our partnership is all the more important to build a robust response to prevent the loss of lives and livelihoods. 

For our part, the United States has thus far provided $65 million toward the drought response in Kenya, and that has reached over 1 million people in the arid and semi-arid lands that the Cabinet Secretary spoke about. This assistance includes food, special nutrition assistance, including ready to use therapeutic foods, access to clean water, and cash assistance, as well as protection for women and girls who are often the hardest hit during emergencies of this nature. 

Today, here with the Cabinet Secretary, I am pleased to announce that the United States will provide Kenya with an additional $255 million in humanitarian and development assistance, around $234 million in humanitarian assistance, emergency relief, and somewhere over $20 million in development assistance. And that is a set of investments in Kenya's long term agricultural productivity and food security, adapting programs to help farmers withstand the very, very devastating effects of the current crisis. 

In making this announcement, I also urge others in the international community to join in partnership with the Government of Kenya to rapidly scale up assistance to Kenyans who are most affected by this drought.  

As Kenya prepares for another chapter in its democratic history, with elections just weeks away, the United States remains a dedicated partner to the Kenyan people. Whether they are weathering this current drought or voting in a free, fair, and, peaceful election, I am grateful to President Kenyatta for his commitment to a peaceful transition of power and to the people throughout the region who desperately need assistance amidst this crisis. All of us must keep these vulnerable people frontally in our minds as we go forward. With that, we look forward to taking questions.  

MODERATOR: I'll call the questions one by one, if you would stand up, state your outlet and your name. We're going to start actually with The Star.  

REPORTER: My name is [inaudible] from The Star newspaper. So President Kenyatta during the [inaudible] extraordinary meeting raised concerns over the conflicts that the drought might raise in the region. Is the United States concerned about the conflicts that might be created by this drought? And are there any mitigations that will be put in place?  

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Thank you. I think we know from not only the history in this country, but the history in so many countries, that when resources become more scarce, that creates more tension about access to those resources. When there is no access to water or boreholes dry up, as we have been talking about in some of the arid and semi-arid lands in this country, that often requires people to move with their livestock. When they move, they may encounter people who've been there a while, or they might encounter other people who have moved with their livestock. And so I think all leaders are right to focus on the risk of conflict.  

One of the earliest and most important parts of my career before I joined the U.S. government was as a journalist. I covered the crisis in Darfur, a genocide, in fact, in Darfur that started because the water dried up and the nomads and the pastoralists had to move earlier in the season.  And that created all kinds of tension with farmers who were trying to grow their crops and harvest their crops. So this is really something to be on the alert to, but that is why, again, we are not only bringing emergency assistance, which is so important to just keep people alive and to try to enhance their welfare and get them through this crisis. But these investments in resilience, the investments in knowing how to store food in a more efficient way so there is less waste, knowing how to target the use of fertilizer so that the fertilizer is used more efficiently. So when it's more expensive, you can use less of it, but get even bigger yields, the use of seeds that can adjust to these much shorter planting and harvest seasons. These are the kinds of investments that we need to scale.  

At the same time, we do everything we can in another part of USAID, working with the Kenyan government and community leaders to increase social cohesion, to create mechanisms for dispute resolution locally and, again, among people of different backgrounds and from different locations. So that when there is tension over resources, as there will be, that tension can be de-escalated in a peaceful way and through dialog and not through violence.  

MODERATOR: Voice of America will be next.  

REPORTER: Ambassador, my question is regarding access. Numbers keep going up and some places have been very difficult to access providing humanitarian assistance. Somalia has been one, Ethiopia has been also. And what is being done? What is the long term strategy to make sure that food gets to these places and these people? Thank you.  

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Thank you. Well, let me just say that the denial of food or any humanitarian assistance as a weapon of war is not only a violation of international law, it's a human outrage. The idea that there could be, for example, grain stockpiles of wheat and oils that hungry people around sub-Saharan Africa would really like to be able to consume, that those are stuck and are being blockaded. We are really hopeful that the negotiations that the United Nations has been undertaking with Turkey, Russia, and the Ukrainian government will bear fruit and that those foods will be freed to be able to reach their intended desired targets. So that's one point.

Two, we see more and more in conflict that armed factions use food as a weapon of war. And you mentioned Somalia, as you know, in al-Shabab controlled territories, it can be very challenging to get food through checkpoints that are patrolled by militants. It is essential that all individuals put the welfare of civilians first. That's not what happens. But we will continue to demand it. And that is a principle that everyone in the world should be able to rally around. Having said all of that, there is also just the plain issue of mobilizing more resources. In other words, we need to simultaneously generate commitments from a wider array of countries that have resources to meet the crisis in the Horn of Africa. It is urgent. We are announcing here today for Kenya, again, very significant resources. But, we need other countries to step up and join us.  

The last time this region was plagued by similar drought conditions, you really saw many, many donors stepping up. It was not just the United States, but so far, the United States is bearing a very, very large share of the responsibility, again, to provide resources to meet people in need.  So that is my urgent call as we deliver additional resources. Earlier this week, I announced $1.2 billion in new money for Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya together. And today, I've described the money that we'll be dedicating to meeting the food crisis in Kenya. That is an enormous sum of money, and it speaks to the amount of need here. But again, we need other donors to step up as well. And at the same time, we try to mobilize those resources. We need to be pushing for access to hard to reach areas. And no party to a conflict should be impeding the safe passage of humanitarian relief. It is inhumane, it is wrong, and all governments and citizens should rally together to condemn those practices.  

MODERATOR: The BBC.  

REPORTER: Thank you. My name is Anne Soy from the BBC. You've touched on one of the questions I wanted to ask you about, the deal that's due to be signed in Istanbul. I just wanted to follow up to find out how significant an impact is it going to have in terms of food security and prices across the world? And the second question is about the position that many African countries have taken on the war in Ukraine. Many of them have chosen to be non-aligned. Your government has been reaching out to many of them and trying to rally those countries. Are you having these conversations with regional leaders and is there a likelihood of a change of stance?  

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Thank you so much for both questions. So on the first, I do not have an update on the status of negotiations or whether there will be an announcement around a deal. But you asked a very important question about what would the effects be. The first effect is that 20 million metric tons of corn and wheat will be liberated to reach hungry people. That would be very, very important. Even the knowledge of these negotiations and the sense that the UN has conveyed that there might be progress, which, again, I can't speculate until a deal is done and verified. I'm not going to weigh in on probabilities. But even the knowledge of that, I think you see some comfort in the markets, in the food prices when it comes to wheat over these last weeks, just the prospect that there might be more supply in the global market arguably has had some effect. Imagine when the wheat itself is free, when Putin, if and when Putin lets the grains go, the difference that could make. And for a country like Somalia, where more than 95 percent of its wheat comes from Ukraine, I mean, imagine what the difference that that could make. Countries like Egypt and Lebanon, where more than 80 percent of their grains come from the region that is now at war thanks to Putin.  

So it also will have a knock on effect if the deal is done and if it sticks, which is that it will give farmers in Ukraine the incentive to plant. Imagine if you're a farmer and you have gone to the trouble to maybe wear a flak jacket and put on a helmet and have your demining equipment and take your crops out of the land and put them in storage thinking that they're going to be sold and they just sit there. Well, what does that mean then, for the next season? First of all, where will you put your next harvest? USAID is trying to help develop new storage solutions so that there is space to put any subsequent harvests that are coming in as a contingency plan. But farmers need to be paid when they do all of that work and they invest there in this case, not only their livelihoods, but their lives in actually trying to produce food for the rest of the world and in so doing, put food on their own family’s tables. So this can be an extremely important piece of the puzzle.  

Having said that, there was a food crisis before this invasion. And if a deal is announced, none of us can relent in addressing the consequences of the drought. The drought, which comes itself on the heels of and alongside the coronavirus, the pandemic, which comes on the heels of the locusts, which comes on the heels of the last drought. So this is going to be a challenging period for this region even if the grains can be unlocked. But every voice on the continent and around the world should be crying out in unison to Vladimir Putin, “Let the grains go. Let the grains go, Mr. Putin.” This is a humanitarian catastrophe in the making. Anything any of us can do to alleviate that must be done.  

With regard to the posture of various African countries on this brutal assault on Ukraine. There has been enormous disinformation projected by the Russian Federation. My own sense is that people on the continent know that when a very large, very heavily armed superpower invades a neighbor and tries to annex territory in that neighbor, that is very bad. I think this is not terribly complicated for ordinary citizens or for government leaders. And I think that is reflected with the overwhelming United Nations General Assembly vote condemning Russia's invasion, 141 countries. And having been UN Ambassador when Russia invaded the last time, and took Crimea and sought to take over parts of eastern Ukraine, many African countries that abstained on the resolution in the General Assembly back in 2014 took a strong stand in this instance. I think for those who hung back, often it wasn't because they didn't see what was happening or that this was a clear case of naked aggression. It may have been because Russian paramilitary forces were providing, or I don't even want to say providing security because that's usually not the case, but had a security presence in a number of African countries.  

The destabilizing effect of the Wagner forces in sub-Saharan Africa cannot be overstated, but certainly for some governments, it would complicate the question of how to vote. Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa import their fertilizer from Russia. Russia is the number one fertilizer exporter in the world. And it actually, before this war started, already contributed to the global food crisis by putting in place  a set of export restrictions on its fertilizer. This happened starting last November, and again earlier this year before Russia invaded Ukraine. And many countries who are counting on Russian fertilizer imports may have wanted to avoid attracting Putin's attention, given again the coldness to human consequences that Putin has shown as it relates to the food crisis and as it relates to the people in Ukraine and as it relates to Russian citizens as well.  

So, you know, those factors exist. We absolutely urge every nation that has an interest in seeing the rules of the UN charter and international law respected, every nation that itself doesn't want ever to be invaded, doesn't want a neighboring country to try to lop off part of its territory, to raise its voice publicly at the United Nations and or privately. I think the reason that these negotiations are happening with the intensity that they are right now to get the grains out is because African voices have made a difference. They have conveyed that this food crisis is the biggest thing to hit this continent in a very long time. And they have not always publicly, but conveyed the importance of getting that 20 million metric tons of wheat and corn out of storage, out of the ports, onto ships, and into hungry mouths.  

MODERATOR: The last question is for The Daily Nation.  

REPORTER: Hello, [inaudible] from the Daily Nation. I have a question first to the Secretary, in terms of intervention. What are some of the areas that this money is going to go to in terms of intervention? And then there's also been issues about accountability, you know, of some of these funds that maybe the Administrator can also help answer that. So that and also in terms of sustainability, we keep getting this money and aid time again. In terms of the long term sustainability, how do we plan to deal with drought and all these issues in the long term?  

SECRETARY KOBIA: Thank you. Thank you very much for that question. One, on the question of [inaudible] the president did in making us aware, peace and security is very paramount. And that's why [inaudible] fundamentally a government that's ensuring that the people who are affected by the droughts as they move from one area to the other, looking for subsidies. They are going to be in the conflict. 

So what we are going to do with the resources that we get from USAID and government is to prioritize areas that we have other warnings regarding peace, security, because of the fighting for these resources like the water, livelihood, and also maybe fighting for the animals, livestock, so that maybe they be taken from one area to another during this drought situation.  

The government has done a lot of intervention, not only the government, the civil society, the private sector. I'm sure you saw Safaricom come through to help out to do cash transfers from Safaricom who come through to give food packages to those affected by the drought. So in addition, the government has been giving cash transfers since September this year and we feel that even those who are moving from one location to another, cash transfer the means, a model that can reach them wherever they are, so long as they are on telephone and they can be able to receive their money through M-Pesa.  

We are also looking at not everybody can be reached to do cash transfer. For about 10 percent of my loan, be reached for cash transfer. And then we are looking for interventions, not that we are looking, but we already have the humanitarian support on the ground through the chiefs where the government has been buying food packages and distributes, in arid and semi-arid locations and then the people affected can reach that food through the chief's office. In addition, we also partner with Red Cross to distribute the food and also other development partners who are supporting the efforts of, supporting those who are having difficulties in food security, especially during this time of drought.  

We have also had water tracking where the government, together the counties, plus other water agencies that have been taking water to the three counties that are affected. They have to make sure the animals or the livestock have water and also that people who are affected by drought also have water because of continual drought in both arid and semi-arid areas. They also dried up. So we are doing that water tracking to take to where people are located. We have also been doing livestock uptake where the government has been covering money [inaudible] to buy animals before they die out of the drought. And then they have been distributing this meat, giving to the people affected and other meat also being culled to distributed through school feeding program.  

What we have also done with school feeding program. The government has made sure that the relief food is applied to school feeding program that in [inaudible]. We have also made program from next when the schools open next term, the schools also our working will be getting cash transfers so that the teachers can be able to buy the food that is required for their school. 

There is a very important for us to recognize that if the school feeding program is not sustained, then we find that some of the children will drop out of school. And what that means, we are going to be a very unequal mission. Therefore, those efforts for keeping our children in school is literally on top of the list.  

The issue of accountability is very crucial because the resources we get from development partners, including what we are getting from USAID, it is very clear and very important that every cent is accounted for and it is also used for intended purposes. In Kenya going through the national treasury [inaudible] zero compliance with the Public Finance Management Act, which is for the system, every country has their own system how to ensure resources are used for the intended purposes and are not kind of exploited. And we have also found giving cash transfer makes the government more accountable than distributing the food itself, which through distribution, sometimes we find inefficiencies, some delayed, and sometimes maybe that we do something where the amount of food that we dispense from Nairobi has not reached long distance or on the right time.  

So this money that we are getting from development partners, the money also given by government of Kenya, you already heard, is about $12 billion Kenyan shillings to mitigate against the drought, which is also accounted for down to every cent. So I would want to assure the development partners here, USAID included, that will be very accounted for, the government will and committed itself to be accountable for the resources that are given.

Regarding sustainability, it's very important that we realize that this drought has been coming to Kenya every four years. And you are being reminde,  this kind of drought you have now, which has, the rain has failed for four seasons, is similar to the drought that was there 40 years ago. Therefore, even as we experience in Kenya every four years we are having drought, the government has already a bigger plan on how to ensure that there is resilience so that sustainability is maintained. This includes digging of the borehole so that there are the arid and semi-arid areas, as I noted, who are fully dependent on very different agriculture. We are also found that for sustainability even to reach the areas, then the kind of livestock that withstand drought and at the same time making sure these boreholes give water to the livestock. So even the issue of cash transfer [inaudible] economy around that in arid and semi-arid areas because people are going to business [inaudible] animals or livestock, then people are going to green small businesses, stimulating the economy within their community. And I strongly believe even when you are looking for resources anywhere, the communities themselves are the real source of resources. So to sustain the effort that we are doing we must educate the communities so that they will be able to kind of have a livelihood so that the traditional livelihood, which may be of livestock or the traditional livelihood which is fading, so they could have another option, including green small businesses, where is always possible. I thank you.  

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Thank you. I don't have much to add, I think the Cabinet Secretary has answered very comprehensively. I would just say when it comes to the funding that  we are providing and that which maybe, again, you're interested in because it's a new announcement, this $234 million in emergency humanitarian support, we have already provided $65 million worth of that kind of support this year. So I think we are in a strong position to plus-up partners and to make sure that the assistance is comprehensive, because as we spent some time talking about together, what starts as a food crisis, often doesn't stay as a food crisis. It can become an education crisis. As people start, young, young kids stop coming to school because they have to somehow contribute to earning money or they feel they have to for their families, it can become a protection crisis.  

One of the statistics that was shared in the meeting that we had is that the distance that people now have to trek for water is now up to 6 to 10 kilometers. That's a protection issue for women and children who might be at risk when they walk those extra kilometers in order to obtain water for their families. So I think, again, this kind of, what we call wraparound support, health support, knowing that waterborne diseases can come about in circumstances like this and needing to be in a position to help. And we have trusted partners that we've worked with, unfortunately, in prior food crises, because as the Cabinet Secretary made plain and as the question made plain, this is a familiar phenomenon, an all too familiar crisis that the people of this region are facing.  

I guess I wanted, also, to focus though on the sustainability and the resilience point, because I think that is the essence of the crossroads we are at as a planet, honestly. And I know it's what the Egyptian government plans to stress at the coming COP at the end of the year, which is the importance of long term investments in adaptation. And the Kenyan government actually has been at the forefront, as has Kenyan civil society, of crying out for those kinds of investments to leave farmers and farmland more resilient. We have been doing resilience programming with the Kenyan government for some time. We started it in the wake of the 2011 drought, which devastated, as so many of you remember, the broader economy in addition to the lives lost and the livestock lost. And what the Government of Kenya says is that that work on resilience achieved is that in the 2017 drought, again another crisis which was of similar scale and severity, some 500,000 people did not need food assistance that would have, but for the resilience programing, given the severity of the drought.  

And so what we have to do in this circumstance, and this is why I'm bringing not just emergency relief, but this $20 million in food security programming, is thinking about how do we deepen our efforts with county governments, with local organizations. USAID here in Kenya, the mission here emphasizes work on local organizations more than just about any other mission in the world. So really wanting to make those investments in local organizations to support the scale up of drought tolerant and drought resistant seeds and crops to reduce malnutrition, including through community education, but also through supplements. And we have really some very innovative financing tools that we have developed together to provide insurance so that smallholder farmers are not wiped out when a crop fails. So that small and medium -sized enterprises can get access to financing more than they currently do. So these are the kinds of initiatives that we have laid a foundation for, but that we need to make significant investments in over time so that even if the weather patterns continue to be very disappointing and very alarming, the ability of communities to withstand those changing climates where you have either too little water or too much, never the right amount, it seems anymore. But a community's ability to withstand that has been dramatically strengthened. That is the path we are on, but we have a long way to go.  

MODERATOR: Well, thank you, Cabinet Secretary Kobia and Administrator Power. That concludes today's press conference. And that's a wrap. Thank you. 

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