Civil society group calls on State to prioritise food Bill to deal with chronic hunger in Kenya
Civil society group have demanded the government and National Assembly to prioritise the development, enactment, and rollout of a right to adequate food Bill with the requisite policies, accountability, and redress mechanisms, institutional arrangements, and resources.
The groups, the Route to Food Initiative (RTFI), Kenya Parliamentary Human Rights Association (KEPHRA), Rural Outreach Africa (ROA) and Consumer Grassroots Association (CGA) have also demanded the government to provide a detailed report on its interventions on the chronic hunger in the country.
They want a clear report/clarification on the report about possible deaths due to the hunger situation in the ASAL areas should be explained to all Kenyans.
“The number of people reached so far with government interventions should be made clear and what measures have been put in place to avert further suffering of these honourable citizens of this country.
This is the government’s responsibility to provide adequate information on use of public resources and the management of national disasters,” said the lobby.
“The process should be governed by human rights principles of participation, transparency, equity and inclusion of all relevant stakeholders,” they added.
Additionally, the group demanded that the government should take practical steps to avert any further deaths from now onwards.
According to the human rights lobby group, the government through ministries and State agencies have not made adequate investments until the situation is averted or they have used the last coin of public resources to address the hunger crisis.
“We urge Kenyans to join in demanding that the plight of our brothers and sisters, young and old in the affected counties is addressed.
We cannot afford to continue with business as usual when our fellow country-men are starring at starvation,” they added.
In the budget read a few days ago, a paltry 2 percent was allocated to agricultural sector despite the Kenyan Government being a signatory to the Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security, committing to allocate up to 10 percent of its budget to agriculture.
“We cannot continue denying the agricultural sector and food-related sectors funds, at the expense of sectors like infrastructure,” the stated.
