By Kagondu Njagi
ISIOLO, Kenya, May 13 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – It only lasts about two and half minutes, but the brief message Asma Mohamed broadcasts on her daily radio show has become essential listening for more than half a million herders in northern Kenya.
For the past five years, station manager Mohamed has been using her show on non-profit community radio channel Baliti FM to discuss everything from good governance and livestock breeding to children’s rights and challenging gender roles.
But she gets the biggest response from her listeners in Isiolo County when she talks about insuring their animals.
As a warming climate spurs more extreme weather, herders in Kenya’s arid and semi-arid northern parts can lose up to 10 percent of their livestock when drought hits, according to the Pastoralist Capacity Development Programme, a local non-profit.
Pastoralists think of their animals as their “banks”, Mohamed said. But figures from the state-run Kenya Livestock Insurance Programme (KLIP) show that, out of an estimated 6 million Kenyans who depend on animals for their income, only a fraction have any kind of insurance for their herds.
So Mohamed and her crew decided to devote a few minutes a day to explaining how livestock insurance works, and how it can help herders get through the worst effects of drought.
“To own livestock is not only a cultural thing, but (also) a status symbol among pastoralists,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“Drought is a threat to their livelihoods. But when they have insurance, they can use the money to keep their herds alive.”
