Kenya scores poorly fighting hunger

Philip Mwakio

Kenya has dropped from position 11 to 16^{th in listing of food secure nations in the latest Action Aid annual Hunger scorecard report.}

Rwanda has emerged as the top East African nation at position 11 among the developing nations ahead of Kenya and Tanzania, considered region’s food secure heavyweights.

Rwanda, now at position 11 has gone up six places from its original position 17th in the 2009 index figure results.

Brazil holds first position followed closely by China, Vietnam, Malawi, Ghana, Bangladesh, Mozambique, Uganda, Guatemala and Ethiopia.

Overall in Africa, Malawi holds the first position with Ghana coming in second.

Government policy

The report attributes Rwanda’s improvement to the new government policy there which supports small scale farmers .

" This progress was made possible by the new government policy which supports small scale farmers with crucial tools and seeds, while expanding irrigation and supporting environmentally sustainable production methods to tackle the endemic problems of soil erosion in the countryside,’’ the report reads in part.

Action Aids Head of Partnership Development, Fundraising and Communications, Sulah Nuwamanya says that his organisation this year incorporated the MDGs element to gauge how far governments had gone towards achieving them.

He explained that indicators in the annual scorecard are based on governments policies put in place to eradicate hunger.