A Critical Analysis Of Kenya’s Disaster Management Strategy

Abstract

The issue of disaster management has over the years posed immense challenges for actors in the international system both states as well as non-state actors. Disasters exist in various forms which include wildfires, droughts, famine, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes amongst others. Every continent on the planet, has faced disasters of one type or another and the capacity to recover from the negative effects of disasters has ranged from nation to nation based on the economic capacity of the state in question. For instance, nations in the developed world such as Japan which has been afflicted by earthquakes and the US which has faced challenges from hurricanes have been able to recover from the respective disasters due to their economic ability to do so. On the contrary nations in the developing world have on their part struggled to recover from disasters due to the challenge of resource scarcity to do so, poor or weak policy coordination amongst other challenges. Kenya has faced disasters of numerous kinds which have included terror attacks, drought and famine, floods, political skirmishes especially the unfortunate events of the post-election violence in Kenya in 2007/2008. The key objective of this study is to carry out a critically analyze Kenya’s disaster management strategy with an aim of appreciating the strengths as well as weakness of the strategy if it indeed exists and if it does, address the weaknesses therein to make it more efficient. The three specific objectives will focus on the following. First, the focus will be on the nature and form of actors and institutions involved in disaster management globally. Secondly, the study will seek to appreciate the regimes focused on disaster management on the African Continent. Last but not least, the third objective will seek to assess the efficiency of Kenya’s disaster management strategy to appreciate the strengths and weaknesses in order to look for avenues where it can be made more efficient. Data for purposes of conducting the study will be sourced from questionnaires to targeted respondents involved in the area of disaster management, as well as from secondary sources in the form of books and credible electronic journals. Data analysis will be conducted to be able to arrive at findings Finally, the study will be able to make recommendations towards enhancing policy approaches to disaster management in the country.