Barriers to the application of famine early warning systems to drought crisis response: a case of selected humanitarian agencies in Kenya

Abstract

hereas Kenya boasts of advanced drought Early Warning Systems ( EWS ) , research evidence shows that Early Warning ( EW ) signals are not often translated to early responses as required. Evidence of drought - related food distress and famine shows that even when EW information is available on time, humanitarian agencies are either caught by surprise or take too long to respond , making the whole EW – Response system to malfunction at the most critical times it is meant to intervene to save lives and livelihoods of the most vulnerable. G iven the increasing frequency and magnitude of drought - induced disasters in Kenya, the need for this research and application of the findings cannot be overemphasized as a precurs or for improv ing both policy and practice. This research was undertaken among selected humanitarian agencies and has revealed that while earlier researches showed that all the six categories of barriers had the same significance, sustainability and logis tical barriers are the most significant barrier categories that severely prevent the use of EWS to trigger early drought response in Kenya. The research also found that system barriers comprising of indicator, timeliness an d predictive capability had much less significance compared to the other set of system barriers related to interpretation, presentation and communication capacities of EWS. With a fifth significance ranking , institutional barriers also present a significant barrier especially implying tha t there is a huge amount of corrective action that these organizations can undertake to remove the barriers and enhance their effectiveness. This study recommends actions that include universal early trigger thresholds as well as system audits and preposit ion ing to resolve some of the barriers. More research will however be necessary on how these barriers play out with regard to government and donor entities that were not included in the scope of this study