Uncovering the gaps: analysis of disaster-risk financial flows in Kenya from 2016 to 2022

In recent years, Kenya has faced a series of severe and frequent climate-related disasters, including drought and floods. Coupled with the further challenges that have hit the country – such as the Covid-19 pandemic, and locust invasions jeopardizing crops – any system for disaster risk management and disaster risk financing would have been challenged. The good news is that Kenya’s disaster risk management architecture is well established; there are numerous financing mechanisms available and these are implemented by diverse agencies, from multilaterals to the Kenyan government. But do these mechanisms go far enough?

Research commissioned by Start Network and Welthungerhilfe set out to understand the financial flows for disaster risk financing in Kenya. Because of the complexity of the country’s architecture for disaster risk management, the number of different financial mechanisms in place, and the number of agencies involved, it can be difficult to assess and understand gaps and challenges in disaster risk financing. The anticipatory action community does a lot of work to understand the effectiveness of financing for anticipatory interventions, but what is the bigger picture regarding overall financial flows for disasters? For example, do we know how much money is being released, for which hazards, and how timely this funding is? How can we get to a more granular understanding of this for particular countries? And are we financing enough anticipatory action – and if not, where are the gaps?

Do we know how much money is being released, for which hazards, and how timely this funding is?

How can we get to a more granular understanding of this for particular countries?

Are we financing enough anticipatory action – and if not, where are the gaps?

The analysis of financial flows for disaster risk financing in Kenya set out to answer some of these questions. Its focus was the anticipatory mechanisms that operate in the early stages of the disaster risk management cycle – those that span from disaster mitigation and resilience to early action and timely response (see this report for definitions) – and for the period 2016 to 2022. The dataset analysed combined data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs’ Financial Tracking System with manually collected data on the disaster risk financing mechanisms operating in Kenya.

Figure 1 shows the main findings and provides a breakdown of financial flows across four early phases of the disaster risk management cycle in Kenya (2016–2022), as well as by disaster type.

Our overall finding is that even when you focus on the more anticipatory part of the disaster risk management cycle, as we have done here, the vast majority of financial flows fall into either ‘disaster mitigation and resilience’ or ‘timely response’. By implication, this means that we are not there yet in terms of scaling up finance for anticipatory action. Other significant findings include the following.

While drought has the most funding by hazard type, there is still a lack of anticipatory finance.

The vast majority of ‘early phase’ funding – 92.9 per cent – is directed towards drought-related events. While addressing drought in Kenya is undoubtedly vital, this allocation is dominated by investments in disaster mitigation and resilience, with only a tiny amount for anticipation (Table 1). Furthermore, the scale of ongoing funding for drought mitigation indicates that current financing levels are not yet sufficient to reduce vulnerability, otherwise such ongoing support would not be needed.

Compared to drought, floods are not as well funded or catered for by existing disaster risk financing mechanisms.

Floods receive just 2.4 per cent of Kenya’s early-phase funding (Figure 1) and, where flood mechanisms do exist, they are almost entirely for river-basin flooding. It is also notable that there has been no funding for either early adaptive or early protective action for floods as a disaster type; flood financing only occurs for disaster mitigation and resilience, or as part of a timely response mechanism, as Table 2 shows.

However, in recent years Kenya has seen concurrent and compounding hazards, such as drought coinciding or followed by other hazards – including floods. To address these challenges effectively, disaster risk financing mechanisms should be adaptable to different types of hazard, with particular attention on addressing flooding, which is currently overlooked in Kenya.

The geographical coverage of disaster risk financing mechanisms is highly uneven.

The geographical coverage and reach of disaster risk financing mechanisms in Kenya is very uneven across its counties. Certain arid and semi-arid land counties are overlooked by the main mechanisms, leaving communities vulnerable. For example, Baringo County only received funding from two of Kenya’s numerous financing mechanisms: the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent’s Disaster Relief Emergency Fund and the World Food Programme’s Bridging Relief and Resilience in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands. It is also notable that the urban counties of Mombasa and Nairobi are almost completely neglected, despite being highly vulnerable to floods, especially flash floods, and to health-related crises.

It is imperative that disaster management agencies consider the geographical distribution of disaster risk financing and improve access to these mechanisms in underserved counties.

Conclusions

Kenya’s efforts to strengthen its disaster risk financing systems have made significant progress. However, there is still much to be done, especially in terms of scaling up the total value of anticipatory financial flows, which require more attention and resources. Disaster risk financing mechanisms must also be designed to better address all the main hazard types in Kenya, including floods as well as drought.

The growing trend of hazards occurring in quick succession, or even at the same time, means that financing mechanisms that are suitable for multiple hazards, or which can be used flexibly, are increasingly important. Geographical disparities in their coverage should also be addressed, to ensure that all counties receive the support they need to build resilience and prepare for hazards effectively. More broadly, and beyond Kenya, reaching a country-specific ‘bigger picture’ of financial flows across the disaster risk management cycle is critical to being able to identify these gaps.