First Lady Pool Reports of February 27, 2023

FLOTUS travel pool #1 - arrival at JBA and WH

Happy early morning everyone!

After an uneventful flight from our refueling stop in Shannon, FLOTUS landed at JBA at 4:29am. Arrival was closed press.

Departed JBA 4:46am.

Arrival back at WH at 5:08am.

This concludes her trip to Namibia and Kenya. LID.

Thanks to co-pooler Emily Goodin, radio pooler Anita Powell, the AP's Darlene Superville, and TV poolers Tara Prindiville, Chris Jimenez, and Mike Monroe. Teamwork!

FLOTUS travel pool #2 - additional background from Kenyan drought area visit yesterday

Hi all, the press traveling with FLOTUS had asked for some clarity about various facts about the Kajiado site she visited yesterday, as well as any information about her conversation with Maasai women, which had been hard to hear. All of the women she spoke with were from the Lositeti village (which has a solar powered well that is the one water source for 12 villages, each with 1,000 to 1,200 people), although many of the 1,000-plus Maasai who were there on Sunday came from surrounding villages.

FROM USAID

The Ministry of Health recorded 474 patients receiving treatment yesterday. A lot of those patients were children accompanied by a mom/caregiver who did not receive treatment.

Pool note: The treatments are supplements to combat malnutrition, vaccines, medicines, physical check-ups. See yesterday's pool report #3 for details.

Several themes emerged from the discussions with the 6 women: The coping mechanisms in this area are almost depleted. With pastoralism the mainstay of the economy, additional livelihood options will be needed, in particular ones that are not dependent on the rain. Women bear the brunt of the drought as the primary caregivers, caring for extended family members and neighbors. Although this is an area of the country that is "better" off in terms of hunger and malnutrition rates, it's quite challenging for people to get even one meal per day.

Water:The Borehole has a solar pump and runs all day. Some of the women indicated that they walk 1-2 hours to fetch water from there and come every 1-2 days with 40-liter jerry cans. The run-off from the tap goes into a trough for the animals to drink. The vast majority of the animals at the watering hole are not from the village, but from as far away as Narok county (neighboring county). The borehole up the road was out of commission because it was damaged by an elephant. It is unclear what would happen if the solar pump broke in this community as people come from great distances to use it.

Livestock:The women reported that 70-100% of their livestock had died, (official figures are that about 45% of the livestock in the Kajiado county have died). They noted the hardship on the family not having access to milk (also a contributing factor to malnutrition).

Livelihoods:Most of the women engage in ad hoc activities to make extra money — selling tea and snacks to nearby workers, day-labor on farms, and fetching water. All sell firewood/charcoal; however, they have been warned by the chief not to do it as it will further degrade the land. One lady indicated that she can make as much as 500KES / day (~$4.00) doing this ad hoc work (did not specify which activity) and may have to walk 1-3 hours to find the work

FURTHER BACKGROUND

Pool had been briefed on the drought situation Saturday... just a few bits of info that may or may not be missing from background you already received.

• Per a senior White House official: This is the worst drought in at least 7 generations, or the worst since droughts have been measured and recorded. Over 14 million people in the Horn of Africa (Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia) are experiencing extreme food insecurity.

  Between early 2022 and early 2023, the number of people who are food insecure in the Horn of Africa doubled – from 13 million people in early 2022 to 22 million in early 2023.

• From a UN OCHA representative: "In Kenya, we've seen acute malnutrition rate 40 percent. More than double the emergency level. In Somalia we have seen the risk of famine." (https://www.unocha.org/)
  "The US contribution to this response has been phenomenal and it has been singular. In Kenya the US accounts for about 75 percent of the funding for this entire humanitarian response. In Somalia and Ethiopia it's about 70 percent for the drought response. (Pool note: 70 percent for the Horn of Africa as a whole.) You can imagine, if you subtracted that 70 to 75 percent, we would be running on fumes. And it is critical that the people of the United States understand the singular contribution that has been made by your country the very worst of this crisis. But we now need more. We cannot go into 2023 with the United States alone stepping up. We need other countries around the world. We recognize they are faced with a multitude of things, but if those countries don't step up, we will see more death in this region, and in 2023 nobody in the world should be dying from thirst.

"We really do need other donors to continue and expand their efforts, particularly in the Horn of Africa, given that it's probably the most dire part in the world."

• From USAID official (this is transcript, so you can use in quotes.

  Drought is not new here. Since anyone alive can remember, drought has existed in the Horn of Africa, but what is different about it is the cycles for drought have been shortening, meaning that the duration used to be 7 years before you would have another drought and now it's down to three. So, the duration has been shortening and they've been intensifying. So, before it was one rainy season or two rainy seasons and now, we are seeing five failed rainy seasons. The predictions for the next rainy season between March and May is they're expected to underperform.

  Drought + locust infestation + Army worms have cut back agriculture by 20 percent and then you have covid,and all of these compounding shocks didn't allow people to recover. When you have all these compounding shocks, people not only get pushed into poverty. They get pushed deeper and deeper into poverty and they can't recover.
  Dr. Biden came here in 2011, and that was the last time, really that the world was focusing on East Africa in terms of the drought. About 250,000 people died at that time and a lot of them were children. That was the time the world woke up and said, we're spending so much on humanitarian assistance to keep people alive, that we really need to focus on how do we prevent them from needing assistance? How do we focus on resilience?
  Governments and donor community shifted things so we could help prevent people from needing so much assistance. Next big drought was in 2017, and when we looked at the last drought cycles, when the same conditions were reached, not as many people needed assistance. The early warning systems kicked in more quickly, governments responded more quickly. Fewer people needed assistance.
  What we're finding now because of the intensifying droughts is it has exceeded people's ability to cope. While we don't know what will happen in the future, we know there will be drought and we also know that there will be some complex risk environment we'll face.
  US provided 375 million in Kenya in the last year in humanitarian assistance, including for refugees, and that has gone to address food insecurity needs. Some of that has gone to cash payments so they can buy the food they need, water sanitation, hydration to prevent communicable disease.
  Direct impacts of drought include numbers of people suffering from hunger and malnutrition. Livestock have been dying and a lot of people's livelihoods are centered around livestock. For agriculture, people have not been able to plat. A lot of people's livelihoods center around agriculture. Price for livestock has also been dropping. So, what's happened at the household level is people's incomes have dropped and they're facing higher food prices from a year ago.
  Lots of kids being malnourished. Kids can't stay in school. Lots of livestock dying. Household incomes have dropped. What that has meant is kids are no longer going to school. They've been dropping out of secondary school because they can no longer afford the school fees. But also in primary school, because can't pay for books or school uniform. Because mothers don't have enough to eat, they can't provide for their babies. Increase of preventable diseases like measles or cholera. People with HIV or cancer don't have enough food to take their medication.

  Pool note: a senior WH official told us that the fees for going to a PUBLIC secondary school in Kenya can be the equivalent of $500 USD a year.
  The secondary impacts from all of that that we can see is that children can't reach their full potential because the malnutrition is now — because they're out of school at all levels, they don't have the skills to do anything but the traditional cattle raising that their families have done before.
  We're also seeing an increase in gender violence. People have a lot further to get water. They're also marrying their daughter off very young, as young as 11 years old. In some cases, we've seen women have enterprises that cause them to earn more than men, and men threatened by their relative empowerment.
  In some places we've seen that violent extremist orgs like El-Shabab or those involved in crime or crime syndicates that can prey on the vulnerable.We've also seen an increase in human / wildlife conflict, and what that means is both the wildlife, elephants, zebras, hyenas, are also fighting over the same water and food that people need. Then we're also seeing conflict between neighboring communities.

  Pool note: Asked about the wildlife conflict, a senior WH official said elephants have been coming closer to villages looking for food and trample on gardens.