El Niño Response, March update

I am very happy to launch a new LinkedIn newsletter – focusing on the work we are doing to scale up the response to El Niño and the climate crisis.

El Niño remains an urgent global emergency

The latest analysis provided by the IASC Global Analysis Cell for the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is clear: El Niño has reached its peak, but its consequences will be felt for the remainder of the year. For the first time, global temperatures could exceed the 1.5°C threshold in 2024.

While the situation is improving in a few places, like Papua New Guinea and parts of Kenya, we see concerning developments in many others. The ongoing crop-growing season is threatened in East and Southern Africa as well as South-East Asia and Latin America, impacting food security. These regions are facing a heightened risk of vector-borne diseases such as Zika, dengue, chikungunya, and malaria, while the cholera outbreak in Southern Africa is amplified by El Niño conditions. On 29 February, Zambia declared a national disaster because of the prolonged drought. El Niño is also causing serious harvest losses in the Philippines and deepening food insecurity in Timor Leste.

Response strategies

Scaling up early action

Because of the high predictability of El Niño, many countries were able to take preventative measures, in particular through anticipatory action approaches - using early warning information to trigger anticipatory or earlier disaster responses that help save lives and livelihoods more effectively than traditional post-facto responses. For example, in Central America’s  Dry Corridor (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua), FAO triggered anticipatory action for an El Niño-induced drought ahead of the 2023 second planting season, targeting over a million people. Despite compelling evidence about the cost-efficiency and high impact of anticipatory approaches, these efforts are still severely underfunded.

Taking the lead in early action: Madagascar

The Grand Sud region of Madagascar is bracing for a severe drought linked to El Niño, and partners are activating anticipatory actions (most recently, Start Network). As I visited the country in February, we urged, together with the Government and the UN Resident Coordinator Issa Sanogo, for support to scale up joint preparedness and early response efforts.

While Madagascar is on the frontline of climate change and faces frequent cyclones and other disasters, the country has managed to turn this vulnerability into a strength. Madagascar is now taking the lead in developing a national plan for the UN SG’s Early Warnings for all initiative.

Mobilizing funding

In a context of increasing humanitarian need and global ODA downward trends, multiplying El Niño-induced crises are facing worrying funding shortages. Only one third of the $56.7 billion required by the humanitarian system in 2023 was received. We need a significant and urgent scale-up in international solidarity to act before the worst impacts are felt on the ground.

Beyond El Niño, integrating climate resilience in humanitarian programming

As climate related impacts will increase in frequency and severity in the next decades, there is a critical need to support community resilience and adaptation, ensuring that climate shocks do not turn into climate disasters. For humanitarian response this means better taking climate risks into account and including resilience building in preparedness and response efforts.

For example, in Somalia, we engaged in strong coordination and advocacy efforts with the Government of Somalia, the Resident Coordinator office, UN agencies and the World Bank to harness and prioritize financing for climate resilience that will help the country reach its climate adaptation goals and reduce humanitarian needs. I am happy to see that the Green Climate Fund will visit Somalia this month and strengthen its support to the country. The Jowhar Offstream Storage Programme, which aims to reduce flood risk and mitigate drought, is the kind of sustainable efforts that need to be supported.  

Accelerating climate impacts through partnerships

In order to build sustainable climate resilience in El Niño affected countries, humanitarian, development and climate adaptation actors need to work more effectively together, in support of government and local actors, to ensure all interventions reinforce and support one another to help communities adapt to and thrive through the climate crisis.

In the Horn of Africa, for example, we partnered with UN agencies, the World Bank and the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD), to strengthen regional coordination on all aspects of water security. We are now looking to expand this regional initiative to additional development partners.

In Southern Africa, the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) is forecasting dry conditions, low harvests and health impacts, while over 13 million people are already facing crisis levels of food insecurity. Since the devastating 2015/2016 El Niño episode, SADC has developed a strong disaster risk management programme, including regional contingency plans, with the support from partners. For example, OCHA is helping SADC establish an emergency response team and a humanitarian and emergency operations centre (SHOC, based in Mozambique). Fostering a coordinated approach under Government leadership is key to a sustainable approach to climate-related disasters.

Further reading

o   Lessons learned from El Niño in Southern Africa. This joint brief by FAO and WFP aims to highlight the impact of previous El Niño events on food security and nutrition and lessons learned in preparation of the 2024-2025 El Niño response.  

o   Getting ahead of disasters – The Charter launched at COP28 is gaining momentum. The Risk-Informed Early Action Partnership (REAP) charter commits signatories to use pre-disaster finance to safeguard development gains and mitigate humanitarian fallout. This shift from reactive to proactive measures is a significant change in how we approach climate resilience and disaster response.   

o   World Meteorological Organization – El Niño update. The greater Horn of Africa may experience above-average rainfall during the upcoming rainy season, according to WMO. While this is welcome news for a region still recovering from a historic and deadly drought, this may also lead to devastating floods and landslides.

Read the full El Niño update.