Unconditional Cash Transfers in Turkana

Kenya has been experiencing the worst drought in recent history, whose effect exceeds those of the 2011 Horn of Africa drought. In February 2017, the Government declared a national drought emergency, with 23 of 47 counties affected and the number of food insecure people more than doubled – from 1.3 million to 2.7 million. This has left an estimated 357,285 children, pregnant and lactating mothers acutely malnourished.

The Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT) assistance project for Turkana County covered three sub-counties of Turkana central, Turkana North and Kibish and was implemented by Save the Children in Kenya with funding from Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) for a period of six months (May to September, 2017). The main objective of the project was to support drought-affected children and their families to cover their immediate food and non-food needs and protect or restore livelihoods options, without having to resort to harmful coping strategies. The project targeted 3,700 Households which had the very poor and the poor vulnerable pastoralist and agro-pastoralists, those with physical disabilities, pregnant and lactating women, the elderly, labour-poor households, child and female headed households.