| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of the study was to establish factors influencing drought mitigation strategies. Four research objectives were formulated to guide the study. Research objective one sought to establish the social factors influencing the drought mitigation strategies in Mandera County, Kenya, research objective two aimed at establishing the economic factors influencing drought mitigation strategies in Mandera County, Kenya, research objective three aimed at establishing the level of community awareness on the existing drought mitigating strategies in Mandera while research objective four aimed at establishing the mechanisms that could be put in place to minimize the effects of draughts. The study adopted the descriptive survey as the research design. The sample size was 2 senior officers and 370 households.
The main tool for data correction was a questionnaire for the household and the interview guide for the key informants. The data were analysed by use of qualitative and quantitative methods. Findings revealed that there are several personal, social and economics factors that hinder implementation of the drought mitigation strategies in Mandera County. Findings also revealed that factors such as cultural beliefs of pastoralists, community life superstitions, children dropping out of school to help in household chores hence depriving them a chance to acquire education which would in turn help them adopt drought mitigation strategies and the tendency of the women and children being left at home when the rest of the community members move with animals in search of water and pasture.
The study also revealed that among the social factors that were found responsible for the community failure to adopt drought mitigation strategies. The study further established that there were several drought mitigation strategies that have been put in place. All the strategies are in line with poverty eradication programmes which include; digging of dams as well as other water reservoirs to ensure that there is water throughout the year considering that the area receives little or no rainfall at all for a long period of time and conserving the environment through taking care of the water catchment areas in the county. Lastly it was revealed that some of the drought mitigation strategies that were prominently mentioned include; destocking the animals, sinking boreholes and diversifying into other enterprises. Based on the findings, it was concluded that drought was very prevalent in Mandera County the results from the key informants who included senior administrative officers indicated that drought has been experienced in Mandera county dating from 1977 to date.
The study also concluded that there are several government drought intervention measures in place and which have been received well by the members of the community. Indeed top on the list are conserving the environment and sensitizing/educating the members of the community on drought eradication measures. It was also recommended the need for mass education and the community will be able to embrace drought mitigation strategies. The study also recommended that the government should encourage the community to be fully involved on community matters in issues of drought mitigation. Taking the limitations and delimitations of the study, it was suggested that a study on factors affecting implementation of drought mitigation strategies in arid and semi arid district in Kenya for comparison purposes should be carried out and another study on impact of the drought on social economic life of past oralists communities should also be conducted. | en_US |
