Why do frequent El Niños still catch the region by surprise?
Every seven years or so, the El Niño phenomenon, hated and dreaded in equal parts, covers the region with heatwaves and droughts. As authorities assess the devastation from the most recent visit, why does it seem El Niño still surprises the region?
MBONGENI MGUNI writes
SADC, this week, launched a $5.5 billion (P74.4bn) global appeal for humanitarian aid, in the wake of a devastating El Nino-hit summer that brought record droughts and floods to more than 60 million people in the region.
The last such appeal was a $2.7 billion request in 2016, which at the exchange rates of the time amounted to P29.6bn.
The time between those two requests nearly exactly mirrors the scientific estimate that devastating El Nino weather events are peaking in six to seven-year cycles.
That the cycle’s timing is known can be seen in the fact that the SADC appeal before the 2016 one was 14 years earlier, or two El Nino peak cycles before.
El Nino, the cyclical climate phenomenon that in the SADC region causes heatwaves, extreme droughts and floods, is the bane of local farmers and food security authorities. It is associated with warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator.
The phenomenon cannot be stopped but its cycles can be monitored accurately. The challenge, however, for SADC is not in the timing, but in improving the region’s preparation for the droughts and floods, as well as alleviating the impact of these on citizens.
Each El Nino peak cycle appears to catch the region unprepared, despite resilience and mitigation having been the buzzwords preached by climate scientists and food security authorities over the decades.
After the 2015-2016 El Nino that, for Botswana, dried up Gaborone Dam and raised temperatures to 40-year highs, the United Nations appointed Mary Robinson and Ambassador Macharia Kamau, as Special Envoys on El Niño and Climate.
The two authored an article entitled “El Nino is a crisis, but it didn’t have to be”.
“When communities require humanitarian assistance for predictable weather events it means our resilience building and preparedness efforts have not succeeded,” the two Special Envoys wrote.
“Communities are telling us that El Niño, La Niña and other weather events should not just be about the humanitarian response, the focus should also be on risk-informed development that prioritises prevention, resilience and preparedness.”
The UN’s Climate Crisis Coordinator for the El Niño Response, Reena Ghelani, expressed similar sentiments last week when addressing SADC on the region’s troubles.
Ghelani recently travelled to Madagascar, Mozambique, Botswana, Zambia and Malawi, seeing first-hand the effects of the most recent El Niño.
“Experience shows us that early warning systems can reduce mortality up to 8-fold and reduce damage from disasters by 30%,” she said.
“Similarly, investing in effective disaster risk management systems and resilience can outweigh the cost by up to 10 times, sometimes more.
“Early warning must be translated into early action and timely response.
“We have seen that it is more effective to act before a crisis hits to enable communities to protect homes, assets and livelihoods.”
To be fair, however, governments in the region have not been resting on their laurels between the El Niño cycles. To varying extents, governments have beefed up their early warning systems, resilience measures and mitigation strategies.
Analysts note that political will is not the major challenge but rather funding. For many countries in the region, subsistence or communal farmers are a large demographic
and their dependence on rain-fed agriculture not only undercuts many of the resilience measures that can be initiated but also means their sustenance is much more exposed to the changing climate.
A prime example of the factors at play can be seen in Botswana where in the years prior to and after the 2015-2016 El Niño, government was spending up to P600 million each year on various agricultural inputs for communal farmers, such as seeds, tillage and fertilisers. In nearly all of the years between the last El Niño and the most recent one, government again had to spend upwards of P400 million annually for drought emergency interventions.
Last July, after declaring a drought emergency for the 2022–2023 cropping season, government budgeted hundreds of millions of pula for interventions such as paying 40% of the seasonal loans to farmers, a 30% feed subsidy to help keep livestock alive, a 30% feed subsidy for dairy, piggery, poultry and aquaculture smallholder farmers and others.
Ipelegeng, the labour-based unemployment relief programme, had its quota increased by an additional 10,000 slots, while other interventions targeted underprivileged children and adults.
For poorer countries, nothing stands between communal farmers and the vagaries of the skies. The $5.5 billion being sought by SADC will go directly to saving lives and helping tide the region’s poorest over to another season.
But Ghelani notes that there are ‘soft’ interventions that countries have introduced to prepare for El Niño and reduce its impact once it has struck.
“I saw many examples in the countries I visited, from planting millet ahead of the dry season, to harvesting water or adopting conservative agricultural practices.
“I have been deeply impressed with the strength of the many government officials and the resilience of the communities and frontlines responders I met,” she said.
However, another reason why regional governments appear to get caught unprepared by El Niño time and again, is that the phenomenon seems to be growing stronger each time it makes an appearance.
In 2015-2016, studies suggested that the El Niño droughts and heatwaves were the worst in more than 40 years. This year, some experts estimate that the mid-season dry spell seen between the end of January and most of February was the most intense in 100 years.
Locally, the Meteorological Services Department estimates that each month between the start of summer in October to its end in March experienced a heatwave, which is defined as temperatures above the 30-year average for more than three days at a time.
Though not related, the climate crisis is believed to be fuelling the harsher
El Niños. “More than 61 million people in Southern Africa have been affected by drought and other extreme weather conditions caused by El Niño and worsened by the climate crisis, including the most intense mid-season dry spell in over 100 years,” experts at UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement on Monday.
The OCHA experts paint a heart-wrenching picture of how widespread, ubiquitous and sinister the impact of El Niño is.
“The upcoming lean season could lead to a significant rise in food insecurity and high levels of acute malnutrition, while water scarcity is affecting people, livestock, and wildlife. “Women and children face exacerbated risks of discrimination, violence, abuse, and exploitation. “Drought, floods, livelihood- and food insecurity as well as displacement may lead to reduced access to education and school drop-outs, leaving children more vulnerable. “The severe drought is also unfolding at a time when the region is grappling with one of the worst cholera outbreaks in decades, food prices are significantly rising in many drought-affected areas and HIV and gender-based violence remain important challenges.”
The eight heads of state who gathered virtually on Monday to launch the $5.5 billion appeal, know the depth of the challenge the region and its citizens are facing now and going into the future. Tackling it will require a redoubling of efforts around early warning/preparation, resilience-building and wholescale changes in the approach to agriculture, health and many others, including changes as seemingly minor as requiring all buildings to have rainwater collection methods.
The way of life of the past will have to give in to the new normal.