State of the Ewaso Nyiro 2026: ASREP Releases Feature Paper on World Environment Day

To mark **World Environment Day 2026** (#WorldEnvironmentDay2026), ASREP Africa released the **State of the Ewaso Nyiro 2026** feature paper — an evidence-based assessment of the mounting environmental pressures and climate risks along one of Kenya's most important dryland river systems. The paper brings data and analysis to a challenge that communities across the basin already live every day.

A Lifeline Under Pressure

The Ewaso Nyiro sustains more than **3.6 million people** across a vast landscape that spans **Laikipia, Isiolo, Samburu, Marsabit, Wajir, and Southern Somalia**. For pastoralist and agro-pastoralist communities, the river is the difference between resilience and displacement — the source of water, dry-season pasture, and livelihoods.

The feature paper assembles the evidence on the pressures facing this system: degradation across the catchment, intensifying climate variability, and rising competition over increasingly scarce water and land. Its purpose is to move the conversation from anecdote to analysis, giving decision-makers a clearer picture of what is at stake and where action is most urgent.

Evidence for Action

Grounded in ASREP's role as a communities-rooted Think-and-Do Tank, the paper is designed to inform policy and investment — not to sit on a shelf. It frames the Ewaso Nyiro's decline as a shared, cross-county challenge that demands coordinated protection of the river, its catchment, and the communities who depend on it.

Amplified in the National Conversation

The release built on growing national attention to the basin, including the Standard Media opinion piece **"Ewaso Nyiro River is dying and Kenya cannot afford to look away,"** authored by ASREP Founder and Executive Director **Dida Fayo**, which brought the river's plight to a national readership. Together, the feature paper and the op-ed press for the same outcome: that Kenya treat the Ewaso Nyiro as the national asset it is.

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