ChildFund and the UN World Food Program of have joined forces in Kenya’s drought-stricken Turkana Region to bring both emergency aid and long-term food security to the region’s people.
The Food For Assets program works to coerce those Turkana living in irrigable areas to learn sustainable farming practices by making the food aid they receive contingent upon their enrollment in the program. It is the hope of implementing partners that after a year of learning, people who have received the training will no longer be in need of food aid. So far the program has proved a success and is helping more than 3,000 households throughout the region. Plans are now in the works to expand it further.
Of course, not everyone in Turkana lives in an irrigable area, and much of the region is still in need of emergency food aid during the current drought crisis.