The devastating impacts of the 2015–16 El Niño will be felt well into 2017. This crisis was predicted, yet overall, the response has been too little too late. The looming La Niña event may further hit communities that are already deeply vulnerable. To end this cycle of failure, there is an urgent need for humanitarian action where the situation is already dire, to prepare for La Niña later this year, to commit to comprehensive new measures to build communities’ resilience, and to mobilize global action to address climate change which is creating a ‘new normal’ of higher temperatures, drought and unpredictable growing seasons.
SUMMARY
The 2015–16 El Niño has now dissipated, but its devastating impacts will be felt well into 2017. As a result of droughts caused or exacerbated by El Niño, 60 million people across four continents, particularly those dependent on rain-fed agriculture, require immediate assistance. Oxfam assessments show people becoming more and more desperate:
In Ethiopia, the loss of livestock means the loss of livelihoods; men are suffering negative psychological effects and women’s trading businesses are folding.
In Malawi, people will run out of food by August 2016, with no staple harvest until April 2017.
In the Philippines, farmers have consumed their seed stocks intended for the next planting season and fish catches have shrunk by half.
In Haiti, some people are walking 5–10km to find water and there are very few day labouring jobs to provide income.
With prolonged lean seasons starting soon in the Horn and southern Africa, as well as some parts of the Pacific, humanitarian needs will grow over the coming months as people continue to face food insecurity, poverty and disease. The shock is likely to worsen in length and severity if a significant La Niña event also occurs.
This was a well forecast event. Both governments and international stakeholders have responded, but not at the scale and speed to preserve livelihoods, hope and dignity. The funding gap is currently $2.5bn.
This El Niño was a broadly preventable crisis, and as such, is a modern day tragedy. The severity of this El Niño’s impacts is a reflection of the world’s failure to provide comprehensive and long-term strategies to anticipate, prepare and adapt. Many of its impacts—hunger, loss of livelihoods and displacement—could have been prevented or mitigated by well-planned investments in sustainable agriculture, basic social and physical infrastructure, and essential health and social programmes, among others.
For slow onset crises, particularly drought, the collective response is almost always too little too late. Early warning systems and forecasting have steadily improved and continue to do so, but turning an early warning into early action is hampered by a lack of strong crossdisciplinary leadership, willing to act on the basis of forecasts; agreed triggers for early action; and funding.
This crisis, while particularly severe, is not a one-off. Climate change has supercharged this El Niño and will bring more extreme weather events, and make strong El Niño and La Niña events more likely. Clearly more finance is required for adaptation. Oxfam estimates that international grant and grant-equivalent public finance for adaptation is a mere $4–6bn annually, while adaptation costs for developing countries could reach around $240bn per year by 2030.