World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Installing handpumps in far-flung villages has long been a favourite activity of aid agencies and development NGOs. But the pumps rarely last forever: at any given time, only two of every three handpumps in rural areas are actually working. That's precisely the problem a team of researchers at Oxford University are trying to tackle. They have created a device that uses mobile phone technology to generate – and transmit – data on handpump use in rural Kenya. They hope their approach will ultimately help to improve water access in drought-stricken areas.

Thousands of people have been displaced in parts of Kenya’s Rift Valley Province as floodwaters continue to submerge houses and schools and destroy crops. They are among more than 240,000 people throughout eastern Africa are estimated to be affected by seasonal flooding.

Every time a drought has hit this elderly couple's village in northern Kenya they have had to rebuild their lives all over again. (..) By then Wacho and Dawe had lost 10 of their 15 cows, but they danced too. They knew they would struggle to support their nine children without these animals but this drought was different -- for the first time in their lives Wacho had taken insurance out on some of their cattle. (..) "Micro-insurance for agriculture is something that farmers in the rest of the world have had access to for sometime," says Challiss McDonough from the World Food Programme. (..) WFP and Oxfam America have their own micro-insurance initiative for agriculture in Ethiopia and it's now being expanded into Senegal.

When she was enrolled in the programme six weeks ago, Namuding’s mid upper arm circumference (known to nutritionists as her ‘MUAC’) measured 20.3 cm. Now it is 21.3 cm. According to WFP nutritionist Joyce Owigar, a pregnant or nursing mother with a MUAC of less than 20 cm is severely malnourished. “Namuding has improved from being almost severely malnourished to moderately malnourished,” she said. The programme through which Namuding receives her rations of Super Cereal targets people who are already certified as malnourished. (..) Alongside the nutrition programmes, the European Union (either through individual member countries or through ECHO, the humanitarian arm of the EU) is also supporting other WFP-run programmes for people affected by drought in northern Kenya.

CNN's David McKenzie spends time with [Molly] a Kenyan girl who is reaching the world.

Today Cisco’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) team had the unique privilege of bringing together two seemingly different groups of people: children who live in a slum in Nairobi, Kenya and their “video pen pals” in Rome. (..) Cisco hosted the event using its TelePresence technology to support the World Food Programme’s video series “Molly’s World: A Girl Films Her Life in a Nairobi Slum.” (..) Molly has received school meals from WFP for four years.

As Kenya struggles to recover from the massive East Africa drought of 2011, school feeding is playing a critical role. (..) Charles Njeru of WFP Kenya says, "With additional funding we could do much more, and even become more innovative. For example, the school feeding impact evaluation of 2009 recommended that we pilot a midmorning snack in a selected district but this has not been possible due to funding constraints."

Molly is a 12-year-old Kenyan girl living in the Mathare Slum just outside of Nairobi -- one of the poorest places in the world. Every day, Molly walks to a school where she receives a free meal. But last year, she was given something more: A camera.

The poorest Kenyans now spend over a quarter of their income on the cereal. High and volatile prices are especially hard on the poor, including the 98 percent of farmers in Kenya who, according to the World Bank, buy more maize than they sell.

The climatic conditions linked to the drought in the Horn in 2011 have persisted, and some early warning officials say the aid community should brace themselves for a possible re-run of last year's food crisis. (..) However, in their forecast, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says they expect the impact of the La Niña to wane over March to May 2012, which is the major rainfall period for pastoral and agricultural areas of northern Kenya, southern Ethiopia, and most of Somalia, accounting for 50 - 60 percent of annual rainfall.