Kenya Arid Lands Disaster Risk Reduction

In the dry areas of Northern Kenya, precipitation is scarce and nomadic communities are vulnerable in years of drought. To strengthen resilience in these areas, this project focuses on improving water supplies. A new approach was developed for this specific purpose. In a participative planning process, the local population is engaged in studying ways to match water supply and water demand. An accessible tool was developed for this purpose: the Recharge, Retention and Reuse (3R) potential map, indicating suitable interventions for each area.

In this project, the local partner organizations were trained to make a full comparative assessment of appropriate freshwater measures to be selected. This enabled local NGOs to concentrate their efforts on the most effective measures in places where they were needed. For example, sand dams were constructed in an area where people were not familiar with the concept, and we now have opportunities to design alternatives for large groundwater extractions. This project was carried out in partnership with the IRC on the instructions of USAID and Aqua for All, and was followed up by the Kenya RAPID programm.