Floods are the world's wake-up call to craft proactive responses

Marooned, Burgei Secondary School in Rongai, Nakuru County, on April 5, 2024, after the River Rongai breached its banks flooding into homes and schools due to heavy rains in the area. [Kipsang Joseph, Standard]

Earlier in the year, a student from Siaya, in one of the science fairs that constituted their high school curriculum, hit the headlines with an invention that I considered novel. He assembled an electronic device that has the ability to detect and warn locals of possible floods.

The equipment’s operationalisation would include being stationed at river banks for constant monitoring of the water levels.

A juvenile full of ingenuity, the boy had absolute conviction that something proactive can and must be done about the management of flooding disasters.

Today, Kenya is a nation underwater with media outlets reporting deaths, displacement of people, destruction of property, and transport paralysed while children cannot go to school.

Before the downpours, the nation was in great need of the rains. With a regime that sought to prioritise agricultural production in earnest efforts to counter the cost of living, it took national divine concessions to have Mother Nature smile upon us. But Mother Nature’s smile on the land has concurrently brought pain and misery.

Al Jazeera reports a death toll of 169 people. The Ministry of Roads and Transport has given a projection of billions to be incurred in reconstructing roads damaged by the floods.

The government suspended the reopening of schools by a week and the most grievous are the events of this week in Mahiu Mahiu. Kenya is, however, not alone in this. In the last few days, the order of life has equally been disrupted at the Arabian Peninsula, Southern China and Africa’s Tanzania and Burundi, drawing the attention of the world yet again to the fundamental question of climate change. While we cast the ball to the global courts of leading protagonists of climate change about which Kenya’s President Ruto has been sound, we must stop to interrogate our disaster preparedness.

We seem to have demonstrated the tendency to be reactionary rather than proactive. We have not succeeded in deploying the requisite resources to anticipate such occurrences.

As we agonise over our current incapacitations, the multifaceted response approach from both the government and non-governmental entities must be lauded as they deserve. Following the Mahiu Mahiu tragedy, the president made a swing call to action that would see the military deployed to work with NYS and police to find the people missing. International and local organisations responded with massive assistance with the World Health Organisation and AMREF supplying medical and non-medical assistance. A crisis Cabinet meeting made urgent interventions aimed at cushioning the people against the extremes resulting from of the tragedy

Going forward, the globe must indulge in a conversation whose intention is to foster preparedness. Governments must move in the direction of establishing early warning systems, intense public awareness campaigns, proper land use planning, infrastructure development, environmental conservation, international cooperation and investments in disaster management and response. As for my country, the beginner is, look no further, seek that student from Siaya.

The writer is a PhD candidate in leadership and governance