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Kenya (Drought and Famine)

I thank my hon. Friend for his timely intervention. When I was in the northern part of Kenya, such was the level of deprivation that a new school being built by one church group was the major building work in the entire region of north Kenya. Yet that was a commitment addressing a need at local level. I concur with my hon. Friend. In the east Africa region some 23 million people are at severe risk because of the reduction in rainfall in recent years. The average rainfall used to be 200 mm between March and May but last year in that region it was 40 mm—a reduction of some 80 per cent. on average rainfall that was already low. A charity entitled Excellent Development does phenomenal work in Kenya. It does superb work constructing sand dams, which are a comparatively cheap and ancient system, where the water retention properties of sand are used to help grow bananas, tomatoes and beans. They cost about £8,000 to construct, making them relatively cheap. A sand dam is a reinforced concrete wall built across seasonal river beds. A pipe is built into the dam, going 20 metres upstream, and over one to three seasons the dam fills up with between 2 million and 10 million litres of water. The sand, which filters water through the pipe built into the dam, delivers a clean, reliable water supply for up to 1,200 people. These dams can last for approximately 50 years and they deliver a clean water supply for approximately £7 per head of the population. Some 200 dams have been built by Excellent Development in the past eight years in Kenya, which means that approximately 250,000 people are able to access a clean water supply as a result of a cost-effective measure by a charity that deserves the praise that is heaped upon it. This type of innovative forward thinking can, if replicated in other parts of Kenya and across the African continent, offer hope to millions of people who otherwise would have none. Offering people ownership of the benefits of many of these projects on an anti-corruption basis can also help remove the stigma that has attached itself to some of the aid efforts of the past in Africa. Simon Maddrell, who is the originator of Excellent Development and is originally from the Isle of Man, and Joshua Mukusya, who is described as a charismatic Kenyan agriculturist, pioneered the sand dam technology in Kenya to help impoverished communities. Between them they have delivered considerable assistance to more than 250,000 in Kenya. Simon Maddrell's original applications for charity work were turned down several times, but he decided—I have much sympathy with his decision—that if he could not join them he would beat them. He set up his own charity. I should also like to mention the work of Dr. Rene Haller, who is from Switzerland. Dr. Haller started experimenting with different trees to see if any would put down roots into the dry, rocky terrain in northern Kenya. The casuarina tree, whose seeds were washed up on Kenyan shores when Krakatoa erupted in the 1860s, was thought to be the best candidate. It produces nutrients in nodules on its roots and so is self-sustaining. Haller set up a charity and managed to establish many different business enterprises supported by rehabilitated land, both employing and providing food for hundreds of local people. He managed to demonstrate the value of conservation—for example, by showing farmers the benefits of tree planting in preserving water for irrigation. Another activity complements dam-building projects. To prevent the freshwater pools from becoming breeding grounds for mosquitoes, fish have been introduced and the fish eat the mosquito larvae. The fish are also a rich source of protein for the community and they fertilise the water, which makes it even better for feeding the crops. Any surplus fish are sold, providing much-needed income for local communities. I and my party have supported successive Governments in their endeavours, through international aid agencies, to help in Kenya and throughout Africa, but I hope that the Minister today can offer the prospect of additional help to projects such as those that I have outlined, whereby a difference can be made on a local and regional basis. I am talking not just about a difference in per capita spend in Kenya, but about a difference that is seen on the ground, at very local level, and that individuals there report as a positive step, a renewal step, a regenerating step. I am talking about steps that provide them and future generations with the wherewithal to regenerate that part of Africa.