A Small Cheque: China Gives Kenya KSh 258 Million for Ebola and Drought

China has given Kenya $2 million, about KSh 258 million at KSh 129 to the dollar, split evenly between an Ebola watch and a drought that is already here.

Ambassador Guo Haiyan and National Treasury Principal Secretary Chris Kiptoo signed the handover certificate in Nairobi on 8 October, with Public Health Principal Secretary Mary Muthoni present.

China Daily, citing the Chinese embassy, said $1 million, about KSh 129 million, will go to Ebola preparedness in counties the government has marked very high-risk or high-risk. The other $1 million is for the drought response. Xinhua carried the same split. The money is a cash grant, given because Kenya asked.

It is not a loan, and it does not buy a project with a Chinese contractor attached in the note.

The timing is the case. Kenya reported its first imported Ebola infection this week, a citizen who had lived in the Democratic Republic of Congo for seven years. The patient died at Nairobi Hospital after testing positive for the Bundibugyo strain. Contact tracing is under way. Bundibugyo is a known strain. An imported death in the capital is a different problem from an outbreak in a border county, because the people who shared a ward, a matatu or a funeral are in the city.

What KSh 129 million buys against a virus

A million dollars does not build a hospital. It buys gloves, training, a holding room, and the fuel for a surveillance team in the counties already flagged. The Ministry of Health has the lead on the medical side. Treasury signed because the money landed in the public purse. A grant of this size is a top-up. If a second case appears, the bill will be larger than KSh 129 million, and it will come from the health budget, not from Beijing.

The other half is rain that did not come

The drought half is for arid and semi-arid counties, where a failed season means dead livestock and a longer walk for water. KSh 129 million will not refill a dam. It can move food and water to the worst wards while the October rains are still a forecast.

The Central Bank's October pack already flagged El Niño as a risk to growth. A drought grant and a flood warning can both be true in the same month, in different counties. For a household in the north, the useful question is whether the money arrives as maize and water, or as a line in a Treasury vote.