In Greek mythol­o­gy, Sisy­phus was con­demned to roll a heavy stone uphill every day, only for it to roll back down just before reach­ing the top. An end­less cycle of effort with­out progress.

Some­times, Kenya’s rela­tion­ship with rain feels uncom­fort­ably famil­iar. But it’s not a curse; it’s a choice. The rain arrives, we pan­ic, we react, we issue state­ments, it leaves, and we for­get until the next sea­son shows up.

Yet this is not just a weath­er event. It is a plan­ning fail­ure. Floods have tak­en lives, dis­placed thou­sands, and dis­rupt­ed liveli­hoods across coun­ties. The tragedy is not that rain has fall­en, but that it keeps falling on a sys­tem unpre­pared to guide, store, pro­tect, and use it.

This is the Kenyan con­tra­dic­tion. We flood in one sea­son and thirst in the next. We speak of water har­vest­ing, yet allow runoff to destroy farms, homes, and roads. Accord­ing to the World Bank, Kenya stores about 103 cubic meters of water per per­son, com­pared with rough­ly 876 across Africa. The mes­sage is sim­ple. We do not lack rain. We lack sys­tems to hold it.

Kenya has many ideas. Poli­cies and strate­gies rec­og­nize dif­fer­ent water har­vest­ing meth­ods. What remains lim­it­ed is imple­men­ta­tion. We are bet­ter at announc­ing frame­works than actu­al­ly main­tain­ing the sys­tems that sus­tain life.

To be fair, the nation­al gov­ern­ment has tak­en bold and com­mend­able steps on envi­ron­men­tal enforce­ment and restora­tion. These efforts deserve recog­ni­tion as a shift in intent. How­ev­er, progress should not lead to com­pla­cen­cy. What was not done before does not make par­tial action suf­fi­cient today. What is right must now be done with unmatched bold­ness, con­sis­ten­cy, and urgency across all institutions.

Con­sid­er Nairo­bi Dam. What is now seen as a cri­sis should have been addressed through rou­tine man­age­ment years ago. A dam does not fail overnight. It dete­ri­o­rates over time due to neglect, poor waste man­age­ment, sil­ta­tion, encroach­ment, and delayed main­te­nance until it becomes a cri­sis. We suf­fer not only from sud­den dis­as­ters but also from slow­ly ignored responsibilities.

If peo­ple need to be relo­cat­ed from water­ways, it must be done firm­ly and fair­ly, regard­less of sta­tus or cost. Rivers are non-nego­tiable. Nairo­bi Dam must be desilt­ed imme­di­ate­ly as it is overdue.

This is not just a city sto­ry; it is a vil­lage sto­ry. Small­hold­er farm­ers pro­duce most of Kenya’s food but bear the great­est loss­es. Rain wash­es away their soil and leaves crops to dry. Those who feed the nation should not have to rely on luck when it rains.

The truth is straight­for­ward. Floods are not dis­as­ters; they are water we did­n’t store.

Kenya’s water secu­ri­ty won’t come from end­less debates over a few large projects. It will come from dis­ci­plined main­te­nance, reg­u­lar desilt­ing, pro­tect­ed catch­ments, enforced ripar­i­an zones, and prac­ti­cal local solu­tions, includ­ing com­mu­ni­ty dams, water pans, and acces­si­ble stor­age such as house­hold and shared tanks. The answer isn’t a sin­gle mir­a­cle; it’s many func­tion­ing systems.

Cit­i­zens are already doing their part through farm­ing, enter­prise, and dai­ly effort. The gov­ern­ment must now match this with coor­di­na­tion, account­abil­i­ty, and dis­ci­pline. Coun­ties need to map ward-lev­el water har­vest­ing and fund main­te­nance before the rains. The nation­al gov­ern­ment should enforce stan­dards and invest in stor­age, not just emergencies.

Lead­er­ship is mea­sured not by response but by pre­ven­tion. The rain has done its part. Will we match it with discipline?

As I received a nation­al hon­or last Fri­day at the DIAR Awards, where I was hum­bled to be recog­nized as a Taifa Patron and the Green Africa Foun­da­tion as a Taifa Cham­pi­on in lead­er­ship, inclu­sion, equi­ty, impact, and sus­tain­abil­i­ty, that image came to mind. Not as a cel­e­bra­tion, but as a reminder. Recog­ni­tion must nev­er become rout­ine.

A seri­ous nation does­n’t let water be wast­ed one sea­son and van­ish the next. That isn’t fate; it’s a sys­tems fail­ure, as the World Bank shows. Kenya needs to shift from feel­ing to sys­tems, from emer­gen­cies to engi­neer­ing, and focus on stor­age. We must stop push­ing the boul­der uphill. Think green. Act green.