The rains are here, but the impact of the prolonged drought that hit this country will be felt in our coffers for the rest of the financial year.

Already, Treasury has been forced to rethink the economic growth target and might even revise its expenditure plans for the 2009/10 financial year.

With industry hit hard by power and water shortages, it is only fair if as a nation we step back and address the myriad of policy gaps that saw both the rural and the urban go through hardships.

From urban water management to preservation of catchment areas, the lessons learnt must now inform our national policies. As we have seen, agriculture and urban-based economies bore the brunt of the drought - though other sectors were not spared either.

As we have realized and with the changing weather patterns, rain-fed agriculture will no longer be reliable. The alarm bells have been ringing for long.

The livestock sector found that the Kenya Meat Commission had no capacity to cope and animals worth millions of shillings perished before they reached the slaughter house. The cereals sector collapsed and we had to import grains to feed the population.

Even with the rains, its déjà vu, all over again. Have we learnt any lessons? The City Council was forced to drill boreholes as an emergency measure. This is short term solution as many Cities in the world have found out.

Again, we must be careful that ground water withdrawal does not supersede the natural replenishment. For its part Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) started a national power rationing as its dams reached an all time low. It tells us that this nation should no longer rely on hydro power and neither should it rely on the expensive thermal power.

The tragedy of this nation is that in drought and in the rain, we have always been unprepared. The Kano plains will flood; River Nzoia will break its banks and flood Budalang'i and will force the residents to scamper to high grounds. All over, there will be little effort to store storm water for future use.

All this informs us that the water agenda should be moved to the upper echelons of our national psyche. Even amidst the drought, the government could still find no quick answer to the continued destruction of Mau Forest, an important water tower in central Rift Valley. In formulating an effective water management policy the government should also learn from the slow response and the drought impacts too.

The expected El Nino rains, if the 1997 rains are any gauge, will cause unprecedented havoc too. Weak bridges and shanty villages will be swept away.

There are enough lessons for our planners too. They should now look for simple effective measures at the rural areas to preserve water for domestic use and for irrigation purposes. A huge amount of money, as we have seen, from the Constituency Development Fund has been used in mediocre projects.

Planners should not be fascinated by costly projects and overlook simple and effective methods. These could be in form of water pans in dry areas to provision of water tanks in rural areas.

This economy will not recover until we are able to address the water problems. As long as there is water rationing and expensive thermal power, the manufacturing sector will always be in the first line of fire.