By Dr. Jarso Mokku, CEO, Drylands Learning and Capacity Building Initiative (DLCI)
Drought kills livestock, but weak demand systems kill trust. Without organized community demand, vaccines remain stranded while pastoralist livelihoods collapse.
Every drought in Kenya’s drylands ends the same way: animals die not only from thirst and hunger, but from preventable diseases. The reflex question is always ,”where are the vaccines?” The real question is where is the demand system to get them to the herds that need them?
Kenya does not lack vaccines. It lacks a functioning demand ecosystem. Public vets are overstretched, private providers can’t aggregate scattered demand, and misinformation fills the gap. The result: millions of cattle, especially in pastoralist regions, remain unprotected.
Photo credits: Turkana County Government
Pastoralists are not resistant. They pay for services they trust, understand, and can access. What’s missing is infrastructure to turn this willingness into action. Demand must be organized—households informed, communities coordinated, and trusted agents empowered to aggregate needs across grazing blocks. Without this, vaccines will continue to sit idle in cold rooms while herds die in the field.
Supply only works when demand is visible. County governments must lead—convening public and private providers around shared schedules and data. Vaccination should be routine, not a one‑off campaign. What’s needed is a neutral livestock health market where communities articulate needs, providers respond, and counties coordinate delivery. The approach is provider-neutral and community-driven, preparing pastoralist communities to be informed customers of vaccination services regardless of the provider.
This is how we future‑proof pastoralist areas and protect millions of livestock. New vaccines will matter only if demand systems already exist. Kenya’s drylands cannot wait for the “perfect” product. Herds are dying now from preventable disease. What we can build immediately is the organizational backbone of a community demand ecosystem that ensures any vaccine—old or new—reaches animals on the move.
In Kenya’s drylands, survival won’t come from waiting for the perfect vaccine—it will come from organizing demand.
