500 million shillings are coming from the German Bayer Foundation to deal with the food emergency in the Turkana regions.
The five-year project presented in recent days aims to increase the capacity of health facilities, promote agriculture, access to quality water and nutrition education of community leaders and women's communities.
Turkana County, the poorest of Kenya's 47 since devolution, faces record rates of malnutrition, irregular weather conditions and disruption of traditional food sources. The World Health Organization has designated the region as a food and livelihood crisis zone since last year.
Long-term studies indicate that nutritional interventions aimed at children in their early years lead to measurable improvements in adolescence and adulthood," said Bayer Fund President Al Mitchell. "Through this initiative, we hope to improve nutritional outcomes for more than 25,000 Turkana children under five and their mothers through sustainable educational awareness programs.
According to a basic survey in both departments, in more than three-quarters of the families interviewed (80.2 percent), at the time of data collection there was no food of their own production in the families or at home, as reported by the national newspaper The Standard.
Other key findings from the Foundation's survey also show that more than half of the farmers, food traders and women surveyed did not receive minimal education. Farmers' knowledge was found to be a critical gap, with 35.7% having a low level of education, 58.6% having an average level and only 20.7% having an average and high level of education. This also has an impact on the knowledge of agri-food issues and how to deal with them.
The results of the survey also show that women make up the majority of farmers and that the responsibility and burden of food production lies with them. The survey identified an opportunity to actively involve men, particularly young people.
The project called IMPACT (Improve Approach to Community-based Nutrition in Turkana) is funded by a five-year grant from the Bayer Fund and managed by Africare with government support.
"This partnership will allow us to pool our resources, expand our reach and life-changing interventions in our community and achieve results in a more cost-effective and impact effective way," said Turkana County Governor Josephat Nanok.