East Africa Braces for El Nino-Driven Food Crisis

East Africa is bracing for a severe food crisis as El Niño looms on the horizon. Forecasters predict an 81% chance of a very strong El Niño forming between October and December, with conditions likely to persist into 2027.

The region's grain prices are already climbing, and Kenya's North Rift has recorded widespread crop failure, accounting for over 60% of the country's maize. Uganda is also struggling, with over a million acres of crops lost in Karamoja.

While early warning systems have been tracking food security risks across Africa since the mid-1980s, the region's development and investment community has been slow to respond. Governments carry much of the responsibility for building a robust response infrastructure that can move at the speed of warning systems.

This would involve strategic grain reserves, regional trade corridors kept open during shocks, and public investment in irrigation and water storage treated as core infrastructure spending. It also means financing structures built to anticipate seasonal price shocks and soil health data feeding directly into land-use and subsidy policy.