Nearly 90% of Somalia is now in a severe drought, following three consecutive failed rain seasons. Some areas facing their driest season in 40 years. Nearly 3.5 million people are already acutely food insecure and millions more are now at risk of going hungry by the beginning of next year.

East and Central Africa are in the grip of a devastating food crisis. More than 33 million people are in need of humanitarian aid as climate extremes have caused widespread food shortages. Millions more lives are at risk as the region gets infested by locust swarms which represent an unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods. Oxfam is on the ground, providing lifesaving food, clean water and sanitation.

Around the world, devastation caused by climate-related events is growing, forcing people from their homes, bringing poverty on top of poverty and increasing hunger. For Oxfam, this is an issue of justice: those living in poverty are the hardest hit by climate change despite being the least responsible for the crisis. It's time to act now.

Battered by cyclones and ravaged by extreme drought, poor communities in the Horn of Africa and Mozambique have found themselves on the front line of a climate crisis they did little to create.

As drought devastates the Horn of Africa yet again, the following analysis comparing 2019 to earlier droughts paints a bleak picture and indictment on the humanitarian community. The urgency to better respond is exacerbated by people’s lack of recovery from the 2017 drought and a further deterioration predicted in coming months.

More than 15 million people are in need of aid as drought hits parts of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia again.

Climate change is now affecting every country on every continent, but it is the world’s most vulnerable people who are hit the hardest. In the south of Niger, Oxfam works on sustainable income generating activities to make the population more resilient to climate change and food insecurity.

Thousands of Somali families were displaced to urban centres by the 2017 drought. Research by a group of NGOs indicates that they do not intend to return home anytime soon. It also shows how precarious and limited are the livelihood opportunities for displaced people in Somalia.

Climate change is already forcing people from their land and homes, and putting many more at risk of displacement in the future. This paper describes the effects on communities and how responding to these growing realities demands far stronger action towards ending global climate pollution.

More than three years after it was initiated in the aftermath of the 2011 famine, the early-warning, early-action trigger mechanism for Somalia remains a work in progress. This paper looks at how the mechanism has functioned during the 2016/7 drought crisis response.