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All countries in the world face risks emanating from natural or anthropogenic sources. Some countries have improved their response rates and thereby survival by being more organized, investing and developing sound response systems and human resources, investing in research and investing in technological innovations as a way of adapting to their environment. Despite these gains, hazards are increasingly becoming common that they threated development investments.

Developing countries’ disaster profiles are dominated by droughts, fires, floods, technological accidents, diseases and epidemics that disrupt people’s livelihoods, destroy the infrastructure, divert planned use of resources, interrupt economic activities and retard development. In addition to this, a fast-tracked pace of development in the developing world has brought with it the perils of precarious living, pressures on non-renewable resources, densely populated spaces that are unplanned, unsafe and risky and environmental degradation among others. As a consequence, the frequency of disasters such as earthquakes, floods, cyclones, landslides, droughts, and fire outbreaks has gone up. Something needs to be done.

Children, unlike adults, are affected uniquely by conflicts and emergencies, however; they could facilitate quick and lasting recovery of the community. Children find themselves in vulnerable situations during emergencies and bear the greatest brunt of disasters because of their vulnerability. As such, these children are exposed to displacement, separation, discrimination, forced labor, sexual and economic exploitation, trafficking and conflicts.  Child protection measures have to be undertaken from the onset of an emergency to ensure their wellbeing is guarded. To achieve this, professionals working with children have a duty to prevent violence and abuse and to enable children to access protection services through government and community systems.

Modern day organizations and governments have embraced Cash transfer programming (CTP) to address the needs of communities during disasters and early development period. CTP has become popular because it gives dignity back to people and is seen as an appropriate emergency response to provide for the immediate needs for food and non-food items. This approach is also used to support the recovery of livelihoods after disasters and put communities back on the path to development.

Humanitarian workers require competent and professional support system that will ensure the right supplies are delivered at the right time and manner to the right location and to the right beneficiaries to alleviate prolonged suffering to survivors. The supply chain is therefore central to effective humanitarian work. This is different for corporate organizations whose bottom line is profit making. To achieve effective humanitarian performance, organizations have invested heavily in supply chain logistics. However, most of the personnel responsible for this critical function in these organizations are not professionally prepared to complement their organizations because they lack humanitarian preparedness background and training and those qualified and experienced are stationed at national offices or headquarters.

Development choices today influence the adaptive capacity of people and their governments well into the future. We cannot afford to delay adaptation planning and action. However, many development policies, plans and projects currently do not take climate change into account due to a lack of awareness and clarity on how to effectively develop and integrate adaptation options.

Water and Sanitation (WASH) is vital in sustainable development and communities that experience Water and Sanitation insecurity are mostly found on the periphery of development. Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation (PHAST) is a course that provides non WASH professionals who find themselves working in WASH sector, technical expertise, techniques and methods that will lead to community management of water and sanitation projects. The course equips professionals with technical skills in developing and enhancing facilitation and communication skills by providing methods that lead to community management of water and sanitation facilities.

After independence, the first president was interested in achieving three things for the country; ie the eradication of extreme poverty, illiteracy, and extreme hunger. This was necessitated by the fact that then and through the colonial system, Kenyans had been treated as second-class citizens which increased their vulnerability and exposure to the three issues. However, this was not achieved then and subsequent governments have been trying to address these issues by encompassing them in development plans and policies. The promulgation of the new Kenyan constitution in 2010, brought forth government’s commitment to providing for vulnerable populations that are unable to meet their basic needs, including women, children, older persons and the youth. Kenya’s economic blueprint (Vision 2030) contends that “no society can gain social cohesion if significant sections of the population live in abject poverty.” Reducing vulnerability and poverty is a key element of many social policies across government ministries in Kenya.