El Nino

The Ethiopian government estimates that 10.2 million people will need humanitarian assistance this year after more than 12 months of erratic or failed rains have caused the worst drought in Ethiopia since the mid 1980s. Ethiopia is one of a number of countries struggling to cope with the effects of one of the strongest El Niños on record. 

South Africa is facing its smallest maize harvest since 2007 this year as record-high temperatures and drought continue to hit its agricultural sector. According the government’s Crop Estimates Committee, only 7.44 million tons of maize is likely to be harvested in 2016 - that’s 25 percent less than the 9.94 million tons reaped.

We are providing clean water to people in Ethiopia stricken by drought, and helping them manage their livestock. It's vital the international community commits funding now to stop a major disaster.

An inadequate response to El Nino will put an already overstretched humanitarian system under intense strain and expose tens of millions more people to the extreme risk of hunger, homelessness and disease. Funding is urgently required to prevent millions more women, children and men around the world from going hungry, suffering water shortages, falling ill and seeing their livelihoods collapse.

The effects of a super El Niño are set to put the world’s humanitarian system under an unprecedented level of strain in 2016 as it already struggles to cope with the fallout from conflicts in Syria, South Sudan, Yemen and elsewhere.The El Niño weather system could leave tens of millions of people facing hunger, water shortages and disease next year if early action isn’t taken to prepare vulnerable people from its effects. 

Millions of people in the Pacific are affected by the consequences of a powerful El Niño.

Millions of poor and vulnerable people face hunger and poverty this year and next because of record global temperatures, droughts and erratic rains in 2014 and 2015, compounded by the development of possibly the most powerful El Niño on record.

Time is running out for ministers meeting in Paris to boost adaptation funding levels by 2020 and agree to set new improved finance targets for both adaptation and emissions reductions from when the Paris deal comes into force in 2020, Oxfam said today.

Long-term approaches to reduce food insecurity must be found, and climate change, which is super-charging the effects of El Niño, must be tackled at the UN climate conference in Paris and beyond.

Millions of poor people in Southern Africa, Asia and Central America face hunger and poverty this year and next because of droughts and erratic rains as global temperatures reach new records, and because of the onset of a powerful El Niño.