Kennedy Senelwa
13 September 2009
Nairobi — United Nations is helping Kenya prepare to mitigate the effects of torrential rains expected in the last three months of 2009 due to El Niño weather pattern.
UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and Ministry of Special Programmes will on Tuesday (September 15) co-chair a consultative workshop to draw up contingency plans.
OCHA said previous experiences of El Niño rainfall in Kenya in 1997/8 and torrential rains in 2002/3, 2006 and 2008 resulted in disruption of livelihoods and population displacement.
"Previous experiences resulted in the disruption of livelihoods, population displacement, loss of property and assets, damage to infrastructure and death of people and livestock," it said over the weekend through a press statement.
In its most recent update, World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) stated El Niño conditions will very likely prevail through the remainder of 2009 and into the first quarter of 2010.
Piracy scourge
Meanwhile, the UN says continuing piracy-related incidents off Somalia coast and increasing sophistication illustrates weaknesses of an entirely sea-based approach to combating the scourge.
A senior UN official said the situation showed the need for the international community to deal with the issue of piracy in a comprehensive, cohesive and broad-based manner.
Joao Honwana, Director of the Africa I Division of Department of Political Affairs (DPA) said the continued increase in the number of incidents underscores limits of an exclusively sea-based approach.
He said the UN has been strengthening the capacities of individual member states to ensure that suspected pirates are prosecuted through harmonising national laws with the international legal regime.
He said UN through its Office of Legal Affairs (OLA) and UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), is also assisting in encouraging more States to share the burden of prosecuting and imprisoning pirates, which has largely fallen to Kenya.
UNODC has helped countries review their counter-piracy laws, provided training for prosecutors, developed court facilities in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa, delivered witnesses to trial and improved prison conditions and reduced overcrowding.
He said UNODC and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are working on improvement of prison conditions in Puntland and Somaliland to allow transfer of convicted pirates back to Somalia.
"In this regard, international support towards rebuilding Somali institutions is crucial to combat piracy, while also creating livelihood opportunities for the local communities," he said.
Honwana reiterated UN's request to Contact Group to set up working group focused on land-based initiatives to tackle the root causes of piracy, while an international trust fund is also being created to channel resources to projects and activities that deal with piracy.
On Saturday, dozens of countries signed up at UN Headquarters to a declaration that commits them to taking greater steps to prevent or delay further pirate attacks.
The so-called New York Declaration, which is non-binding, calls on signatories to make widely known "best management practices" for ships and other vessels to protect themselves against possible attacks on pirates.
The declaration was first proposed in May by four of the countries with the world's largest ship registries - Panama, the Bahamas, Liberia and the Marshall Islands. Yesterday's signatories included the United States, China, France and the United Kingdom.
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