KENYA DOING WELL

Kenya has received rare praise from a UN agency over its economic progress and relative stability in a region plagued by conflict, famine and poverty.

The World Food Programme said that as a result, the country serves as an important transit point for food aid to Uganda, Southern Sudan, Somalia and the Congo.

The country’s image took a battering from the post-election violence in 2008 and the recent flooding, devastating drought and other disasters have not helped matters.

Yet WFP observed that the country’s status as a powerhouse in the region and an island of stability remains unchallenged in the east and central African region.

“Kenya is the biggest economy in East Africa and that means it has more infrastructure than other countries, certainly than Somalia, but also eastern Congo, Southern Sudan and to a certain extent Uganda,” said a WFP official in Nairobi, Mr Peter Smerdon.

“The roads are better, the port works efficiently and there are enough transporters to ferry commercial goods,” he said.

The WFP says the key to the food distribution system is the well developed port of Mombasa, which last year handled 670,000 tonnes of food aid.

Mr Smerdon said about 10 million people in the region rely on food aid that comes through Mombasa.

“Fierce fighting, flooding, devastating droughts and other disasters in East and Central Africa translate into millions of hungry and desperate people. But for the fortunate, food aid does get through by way of a sophisticated network of road, sea and air routes connected to Kenya,” he said.

For places like Southern Sudan, where few roads exist and communities are isolated, airdrops are necessary.

And when heavy fighting in Somalia makes it risky to transport food by road, it is shipped from Mombasa to Mogadishu under European Union naval escort.

Mr Smerdon says the WFP buys half its food aid supplies from traders in the region while the rest comes from the US and other foreign donors.

“We have launched a programme aimed at helping marginal farmers by buying their produce,” he said.