East Africa and problems of droughts and floods

Water is a precious commodity in east Africa, where the threat of drought is never far away. But cyclical droughts and floods continue to plague farmers.

It is an age-old problem that has been linked to many hardships--and conflicts--in the region. Can anything be done

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In Kenya, three rainy seasons in a row failed. There was not enough water to grow crops or feed livestock. In towns and cities this year the price of maize meal, a staple food, doubled, and milk was so scarce that some mothers fought in shops to get enough for their children.

Kenya's worst-hit areas were eastern, northeastern and coastal provinces.

"What I planted was maize, beans and potatoes and pears and none came out, not at all," said one woman after surveying her wilted fields at Katalembu village in east province.

"It's like one or two years without anything coming out from the farms," she said, they "had a lot of problems getting a little to eat."

When the rains did come to Kenya, they came with a vengeance, thunderous through the nights, as water rushed through rural and urban areas.

At first it was a welcome sound to Kenyans, but all too soon there were stories of terrible floods.

Slum houses in Nairobi were washed away. And dozens of people died when torrential rains swelled rivers. Many more lost what little property they had: mattresses, some furniture, cooking pots. Up-country, a family was killed in a lightening storm, and more were displaced by flooding.

Droughts and floods are unusual in Kenya, nor in the rest of east Africa world has hears of the recent crises in Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and other areas.

Sometimes the problems are made worse by civil war or cultural customs.

In Somalian tradition, clans fought each other over water rights. With the introduction of modern weapons, faction leaders seized control of scarce reasons, such as watering points and farmland. When the drought of 1992 came, few people had access to precious resources. Over 350,000 Somalians died in the resulting famine.

Because of the these perennial problems, relief agencies are based full-time in east Africa they are after called upon to rush in and help feed those facing starvation.

Regional governments tried to help too, though sometime less successfully, when Kenya declared a national disaster during this year's drought and pledged to distribute food, but made a common mistake according to Quintagilie spokesman for the UN world food program.

"This approach was one that is typical of a lot governments in this part of the world, which was to try and get food out to everybody, to make sure that all the population right across the country felt that they were getting some assistance," he said.

"But what ends up happening is that you try to feed everyone a small quantity of food, it's just not effective," Quintaglie explained, adding that food aid should be targeted at the most vulnerable.

The WFP figures out who to target by sending teams out into towns and districts, to visit hospitals, to meet with local officials and get an idea of who is most affected by drought and food shortages, Qunitaglie said.

And relief agencies no longer have to wait for tragedy to hit before acting. The US government runs an agency called the Famine Early Warning System, and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization puts out quarterly reports which analyze weather patterns, food prices, civil strife and other early indicators of trouble.

"We really faced this drought head on," Quintaglie says of the Kenya emergency. "We caught Kenya in the early stages, so we laid the groundwork early on." But some say there must be a better may to solve once and for all the cycle of drought and famine, floods and death.