In 1984, one of the worst droughts in living memory struck northern Kenya. The semi-arid regions of Turkana, Marsabit and Mandera were devastated. Cattle, the primary wealth of pastoral communities, died in their hundreds of thousands.
Children were malnourished. Emergency food aid arrived late and in insufficient quantities. Communities that had survived droughts for centuries through traditional coping mechanisms found that those mechanisms were being undermined by changed land use, population growth and market dependency.
The 1984 drought was a preview of the climate challenges that would become increasingly severe.