CARE Capacity and Management Structure

Having been operational in Kenya since 1968 CARE Kenya, currently carries out major initiatives in Refugee and Emergency Operations, it is the lead agency under UNHCR and WFP (for water/hygiene, food distribution, and formal education and community development) in 3 camps along the Somali border.

CARE Kenya has a fully fledged emergency and refugee operations (ERO) sector that provides support to more than 175,000 refugees in 3 refugee camps and an ongoing ECHO-funded emergency drought intervention in North Eastern Kenya.  In order to ensure that the current humanitarian assistance is implemented smoothly without affecting the operations of ERO sector, an Emergency Response Team (ERT) has been formed.  The ERT is led by seven senior staff members: CD, ACD Programme, ACD Support, 3 Senior Sector Managers and a Kisumu based Senior Emergency Program Officer.

CARE Kenya has been participating in the cluster meetings and has developed initiatives in the following areas:  Camp Coordination & Camp Management (CCCM), Early Recovery, Food Assistance, Shelter & NFIs and Water and Sanitation.  Taking into account that CARE's proposal for Water/Sanitation/Health was inadvertently not included, our listed projects totaled US $1,255,000.

Key Gap: As noted earlier, CARE believes that the highly vulnerable in conflict affected populations, which includes displaced in host family settings and highly vulnerable non-displaced populations (e.g. child and female headed households, elderly headed households with OVC, PLWHA, the disabled etc.) may represent the population with the greatest unmet need.  This is because they are embedded in larger populations.  So humanitarian assistance, to reach them, requires effective identification coupled with safe, targeted distributions.  Otherwise, aid will be garnered by the young and strong.

CARE has the capacity to reach this population.  This is because CARE has the capacity to establish partnerships with key grass roots civil society organisations, prioritising faith based organisations. The capacity to utilise this essential approach distinguishes INGOs such as CARE from the government, KRCS and UN agencies. 

CARE is targeting areas it has been operational in before, the informal urban settlements of Nairobi, rural areas of Nyanza Province and informal urban settlements in the province's capital city, Kisumu.

In Nairobi, CARE has established 8 partner organisations located along the periphery of the city's two largest informal settlements, Kibera and Mathare.  In Kisumu, CARE has been given the lead, under the KRCS coordination mechanism, for the city's largest informal settlement, Nyalenda. CARE has established partnerships with 14 churches under the umbrella of the Lutheran Church.  In the rural areas of Nyanza, CARE is targeting the districts of Siaya, Bondo, Homa Bay, Rachuonyo and Suba.  CARE has worked in these rural areas for many years, and is working through such civil society structures such as church established relief centres at the division level.

A key CARE concern and advocacy point is that while the donor community appears to have responded well for immediate assistance for people in camp settings, donors need to equally focus on the needs of the highly vulnerable embedded in conflict affected populations, The numbers of people in need in camp settings, around 300,000 as of the end of Jan, is much clearer than the number of highly vulnerable embedded in conflict affected populations.  But the number of such highly vulnerable is likely well over 1,000,000.  For this population, donor's need to fund longer term programmes e.g. up to one year, involving both humanitarian aid and early recovery.

CARE has been an active participant in the cluster groups,  CARE is also working closely with the KRCS, both in Nairobi and Kisumu.  CARE has continued to advocate in the coordination meetings on the need for KRCS to play a leading role in coordination but to avoid monopolising distribution of humanitarian aid. 

Also as mentioned above, CARE has established partnerships with grass roots civil society organisations, primarily faith based ones, for effective identification and targeting of the highly vulnerable embedded in poor, conflict affected populations. 

CARE is keen and encouraging other humanitarian agencies to use the distribution systems it has established to provide essential supplies to the hard to identify and reach highly vulnerable embedded in conflict affected populations