Kenya’s gov­ern­ment is free­ing up more money in it’s bud­get to buy more food. The coun­try is in an emer­gency sit­u­a­tion as the rains did not arrive dur­ing the recent mon­soon sea­son. The U.N.‘s World Food Pro­gramme recently called on the world to bring in more dona­tions to Kenya.

From Bloomberg, writer Eric Ombok tells us more about Kenya’s move.

Kenya’s gov­ern­ment allo­cated 9 bil­lion shillings ($118.1 mil­lion) to buy more food imports, as up to 10 mil­lion peo­ple are at risk of “severe hunger” due to drought, said Finance Min­is­ter Uhuru Kenyatta.

The gov­ern­ment will “repri­or­i­tize expen­di­ture” to come up with the funds, Keny­atta told reporters today in the cap­i­tal, Nairobi.

Drought reduced crops, low­ered hydropower elec­tric­ity pro­duc­tion which led to power cuts, and caused wide­spread water short­ages. Corn pro­duc­tion may fall 65 per­cent below con­sump­tion this year, Prime Min­is­ter Raila Odinga said on Aug. 12. The United Nations’ World Food Pro­gram said on Aug. 21 an addi­tional 1.3 mil­lion peo­ple in the East African nation are in need of food aid. The agency is cur­rently dis­trib­ut­ing food to 2.5 mil­lion Kenyans and gives meals to more than one mil­lion schoolchildren.

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