The Nairobi Informal Settlements: An emerging food security emergency within extreme chronic poverty - A compilation and synthesis of key food security, livelihood, nutrition and public health data

In March 2009, Oxfam GB, Concern Worldwide and CARE International in Kenya commissioned a technical review of available data on the status of food security, livelihoods, nutrition and public health in the Nairobi slums/informal settlements. The purpose of the technical review was two-fold: 1) begin a process of consolidating key information on the Nairobi slums for assessing current status and future trends and 2) assess whether a food security emergency was currently occurring in the slums.

On beginning a process of consolidating key information on the current situation of the Nairobi slums, this was done in recognition that there is a lack of disaggregated and long term data on the food security, livelihoods, nutrition and public health situations of residents of these informal settlements, not only in Nairobi but in Kenya as a whole. There is a need for ongoing reliable data collection and synthesis to increase the knowledge base of the current situation in urban slums and ongoing awareness of critical trends.

On assessing whether a food security emergency is occurring, it is clear that there is limited information to fully understand the current situation and the impact of recent shocks, in particular high food prices on the nutrition and health status of the urban poor. For background, on 16 January, President Kibaki formally declared a Kenya food shortage to be a national emergency, with one out of every three Kenyans (10 million) reported to be threatened by starvation. Subsequently, the Kenya Food Security Steering Group Short Rains Assessment (KFSSG SRA 2009) stated, “… at least 4.1 million urban dwellers to be extremely food insecure and have difficulty meeting their food needs on a predictable basis.”

The declaration of a national food security emergency was based on a number of critical problems. The KFSSG report noted that the combination of the poor 2008 long and short rain seasons, reduced hectarage planted due to the post election violence, high input costs and resulting sub-optimal application of recommended inputs, resulted in a 2008 annual maize production of 2.34 million MTs, which was 15% below recent years’ averages and around 22% below annual national consumption requirements. Exacerbating the shortfall is an expected 60% reduction in cross border imports from Tanzania and Uganda. At the same time, Kenya’s national strategic reserve had fallen inappropriately low. The 2009 KFSSG report stated that the country’s reserve for the staple maize was at 72,000 MTs, equivalent to slightly over one week’s supply for the national annual consumption of 3 million MTs. As maize is the staple food for around 90% of the Kenyan population, and as other staple grains are equally depleted, it is no surprise that the Kenyan Government announced in early 2009 an emergency food security crisis in the country.

The Government’s declaration that at least 4.1 million urban dwellers are extremely food insecure was not supported by clear data. As noted above, there is limited information on the status of such key indicators as food security, livelihoods, nutrition and health in the urban slums, and especially limited information on trends. This is especially problematic for the urban poor as they typically reside in slums that are marked by extreme chronic poverty within highly dense populated areas. In such settings, it is not a simple task to differentiate extreme chronic poverty from an emerging emergency situation. So a key purpose of this technical brief was to better specify the current humanitarian situation in the urban slums of Kenya at a time of a declared national food security emergency.

This technical brief, faced with a challenge of limited data sources, primarily referred to the above noted Kenya Food Security Steering Group Short Rains Assessment (KFSSG SRA 2009), two nutrition surveys (Kibera and Mathare 2008), one sentinel site nutrition survey conducted in Mathare slum in January 2009, a 2008 acute malnutrition caseload synthesis from MoH/NCC/Concern and MSF-B and published data from the African Population & Health Research Centre (APHRC) .

In order to help differentiate an emerging food security emergency from extreme chronic poverty, the brief has utilised a series of trigger indicators for emergency food insecurity appropriate to an urban setting, as follows:
1. Food availability
a. Reduced availability of food in the market for highly market-dependent populations.
2. Food access
a. Increasing, high food prices
b. Falling or static incomes
c. Increasing severe entitlement gap (people not meeting 2,100 kcal/day).
d. Increasing reliance on negative coping strategies
3. Food utilisation
a. Reduced dietary diversity
b. Increasing malnutrition