Are the Water Trips in the Dryland Kenya for Sustainable Development, Journeys in Vain or Trips to Oblivion?

Abstract

Kenya’s households’ (HH) water access status is appalling. As a gender based task, women and children make billions of trips to satisfy HH water needs, taking a heavy toll on societal growth and development. Kenya’s 4872 randomly sampled HHs from six Arid and semi-Arid land (ASALs) counties were studied using interviews and focused group discussions. The aim was to determine the burden of water fetching in Kenya-ASALs. On a daily basis, HHs make 3.06 water trips of 49.42+0.36 minutes, largely shouldered by females (2.69 trips); males (0.22); women (2.51); men (0.12) and children (0.43 trips). The 2.5 million Kenyan-ASAL households make 7,658,500 trips daily (2,795,352,500 annually). Of these, children make 395,477,500; women (2,287,637,500); and men (112,237,500 trips). With this kind of burden, the children and women are denied opportunity for self-development. Water supply mainstreaming is an urgent priority in Kenya-ASALs.

Key words: Water Supply, Sustainability, Gender, Development, Kenya ASALS