The Horn of Africa is experiencing the fourth below-average rainy season since 2020, of which the Kenyan government declared a national emergency in September 2021. An estimated 4.1 million people in Kenya require humanitarian water assistance as nearly 500 boreholes have stopped functioning. 1.5 million cattle have also died from the drought.
Linda Ogallo, a climate change adaptation expert at the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) based in Nairobi, says drought is not being experienced in a vacuum. “The region has faced compounded disasters in the last few years,” she says, which has heightened instances of food insecurity and disease outbreaks.
Climate change exacerbates extremes, says Robert Patalano, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology. In addition to coping with periods of more intense dry seasons, punctuated by se
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