Prolonged drought has driven widespread famine risk across multiple regions, according to coordinated assessments released on March 5, 2020, with millions of people facing acute food insecurity as successive failed rainy seasons combine with conflict, displacement, and economic shocks to produce conditions of exceptional severity. The assessments — published jointly by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, and a range of national and regional partners — describe situations in several parts of the world in which acute malnutrition, excess mortality, and the specific conditions classified as famine are either present or imminent in the absence of urgent humanitarian action.

The scale of the situation documented in the reports is substantial. Tens of millions of people across the most affected regions are experiencing crisis-level or worse food insecurity, and a significant subset of that population is facing conditions close to or consistent with famine as technically defined by the international classification system. Humanitarian agencies have been responding with expanded operations for months, but the cumulative effect of drivers operating across multiple years has produced a situation that exceeds the capacity of current responses and that requires a substantial expansion of assistance if the worst outcomes are to be prevented.

The Mechanics of the Crisis

The specific mechanics by which drought produces famine risk have been well understood for decades, and they are playing out in familiar but no less devastating ways in the current situation. Successive failed rainy seasons reduce crop production, damage pasture that supports livestock, and produce specific water-related stresses that affect agricultural systems, household water supply, and public health. The cumulative effect across multiple seasons — particularly where the normal dry-season recovery does not occur or is incomplete — produces conditions in which the household and community capacities to absorb further shocks are exhausted.

At the household level, drought produces a characteristic sequence of coping responses. Households first reduce consumption and shift toward cheaper foods. They sell livestock, other assets, and specific productive resources to maintain access to food. They reduce spending on non-food essentials including health care, education, and the maintenance of homes and equipment. They send household members to migrate in search of work or assistance, often splitting families in ways that produce additional vulnerabilities. And in the most severe stages, they engage in what humanitarian agencies describe as "crisis" coping — including the sale of last-remaining assets, the withdrawal of children from school, and the specific behaviours that indicate households are approaching the limits of their ability to cope at all.

At the community level, the cumulative effect of these household responses produces specific patterns that humanitarian assessments track closely. Livestock markets flood with animals as households sell them to raise cash, producing collapsing prices and losses of household assets that will take years to rebuild. Migration patterns shift, with specific flows of displaced people arriving in camps, informal settlements, and urban areas. Local markets experience disrupted supplies and rising food prices. Health facilities report rising caseloads of malnutrition-related conditions and of illnesses for which malnutrition is a risk factor.

At the regional level, the specific combination of drought-driven pressures with other factors — including conflict in the most affected areas, the specific economic conditions of affected countries, and the broader international context — produces the conditions in which famine risk becomes a serious concern. The specific situations described in today's assessments involve different combinations of these factors, but the overall pattern of interaction is recognisable across contexts.

The Role of Conflict

Across the most affected situations, conflict has been a significant contributor to the severity of the crisis. Drought alone, in contexts where institutions, markets, and humanitarian responses function effectively, produces serious pressure but rarely produces famine. Drought combined with conflict — where it disrupts agricultural production, displaces populations, blocks humanitarian access, and erodes the specific institutional capacities required to respond — produces the conditions in which famine becomes a real and immediate risk.

The specific ways in which conflict interacts with drought vary across affected situations. In some contexts, active hostilities have prevented farmers from planting or harvesting crops, have forced livestock keepers away from traditional pasture areas, and have damaged specific agricultural infrastructure. In others, the specific patterns of conflict have disrupted markets, constrained the movement of food and people, and produced displacement patterns that concentrate vulnerability in specific locations. In still others, conflict has affected the institutions and services on which communities depend, including health facilities, education, and specific government functions.

Humanitarian access to populations in conflict-affected areas has been a particular challenge. The principles of humanitarian action — including neutrality, impartiality, and independence — provide the normative basis on which humanitarian organisations seek access to populations in need regardless of the political context. In practice, negotiating such access requires sustained engagement with all parties whose cooperation is required, and specific situations have produced extended periods during which access has been constrained or impossible. The cumulative effect of such access constraints has been substantial.

The Humanitarian Response

Humanitarian organisations have been responding to the situations described in the assessments for extended periods, and current operations are among the largest being mounted globally. Food assistance, nutrition interventions, water, sanitation and hygiene programmes, health services, livelihood support, protection activities, and specific responses to the particular conditions in each context together constitute a response of substantial scale. Tens of millions of people are receiving humanitarian assistance across the affected regions, and the operational capacity that supports this response has been built up over years of sustained engagement.

The effectiveness of the response depends on a combination of factors. Funding — which has been a persistent challenge — determines the scale at which programmes can operate. Access — which depends on security, logistics, and political conditions — determines where and how programmes can be delivered. Operational capacity — including trained staff, specific technical capabilities, and established relationships with communities — shapes what can be done with the resources available. Coordination among the many actors involved — including UN agencies, international and local NGOs, governments, and civil society organisations — determines how well individual efforts combine into collective impact.

Current operations include specific innovations designed to address the particular features of the current situations. Cash-based programmes, where markets continue to function, allow households to purchase food from local vendors and support local economies. Nutrition programmes are targeting children under five, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and specific populations with particular needs. Livelihood support is providing agricultural inputs, tools, and training where farming can be resumed, and is supporting specific activities designed to build household resilience. Protection programmes are addressing the specific risks faced by women, children, and other vulnerable groups in crisis conditions.

Early Warning and Prevention

An important dimension of the current situation is that it has not emerged without warning. Early warning systems have been tracking the conditions that have produced the current risk for years. Successive assessments have identified the trajectory of the situation, have projected its likely development, and have called for specific preventive action. The fact that the situation has reached the severity now being documented reflects the gap between what early warning systems have identified as necessary and what has actually been done.

The specific lessons drawn from the current situation for early warning and prevention are consistent with lessons drawn from previous food security crises. Early action — taken in response to early warning indicators rather than waiting for the most severe manifestations of a crisis — is substantially more effective and efficient than late response. The political and financial architecture for early action has improved in recent years, with specific financing mechanisms that can release resources on the basis of early warning triggers, but the scale of such financing remains limited relative to the potential need.

At the national level, countries that have invested in agricultural policies supporting drought resilience, in social protection systems that can respond rapidly to shocks, in specific early warning capacities, and in institutional frameworks for emergency response have generally been better positioned to manage drought-related stresses. Countries where such investments have been more limited have experienced more severe impacts from comparable drought conditions, and the specific contrasts have informed policy advocacy for sustained investment in resilience-building.

Climate Context

The current droughts are occurring against a backdrop of climate change that, according to extensive scientific analysis, is affecting both the frequency and the intensity of drought events in many parts of the world. The specific attribution of individual drought events to climate change involves careful statistical and modelling work, and attribution studies for several of the current droughts have been conducted. The general pattern of results is that recent droughts in many affected regions have been made significantly more likely or more severe by anthropogenic climate change.

The implications for longer-term adaptation are substantial. Regions experiencing more frequent and more intense drought face pressures that existing agricultural systems, water management infrastructure, and economic structures were not designed to absorb. Specific adaptation strategies — including drought-resistant crop varieties, improved water management, diversified livelihoods, and specific social protection mechanisms — have been developed and, to varying degrees, implemented. The scale of investment in adaptation remains below what analyses suggest would be required to match the pace of climate change, however, and the gap between current adaptation and projected climate impacts continues to widen.

The connection between climate change, drought, and famine risk adds another dimension to the broader climate policy debate. The costs of climate change — in human lives and welfare, and in the specific vulnerabilities of populations that contribute least to the problem — are illustrated concretely by the situations described in today's assessments.

What Is Being Asked

The specific calls to action in today's assessments are, in many respects, familiar from previous food security crises, but they are delivered with renewed urgency. Donor governments are asked to sustain and substantially increase funding for the humanitarian response, with specific attention to the most underfunded appeals. Affected-country governments are asked to support response operations, to maintain policy environments that enable effective humanitarian action, and to invest in the longer-term resilience-building that reduces vulnerability to future events.

International organisations and civil society are asked to coordinate effectively, to continue their operational work, and to advocate for the scale of response that the situation requires. Private-sector actors, whose engagement with humanitarian issues has been growing, are asked to consider their role in the response and to engage in specific ways that can contribute to outcomes.

Individuals are asked for sustained attention. Public awareness of famine risk has historically been episodic, intensifying around specific high-profile events and then fading. The sustained, slow-motion character of much of the current situation makes it specifically vulnerable to the pattern in which public attention wanes before action has been adequate. Today's assessments are, in part, a call for sustained engagement that matches the sustained nature of the crisis.

Looking Ahead

The situations described in the assessments will continue to evolve in the weeks and months ahead. Seasonal patterns will shape the trajectory in specific regions, with the next rainy seasons being particularly important determinants of whether the situations improve or deteriorate further. Political developments in the most affected contexts, the cumulative effect of humanitarian response, and specific external shocks will all shape what comes next.

The longer-term work of reducing the vulnerability of populations to the specific combinations of drought, conflict, and economic stress that have produced the current situations will continue to require sustained attention. Investment in climate adaptation, in conflict prevention and resolution, in agricultural and rural development, in social protection, and in the specific institutional capacities that underpin resilience — all of these represent the structural work that, over time, can reduce the frequency and severity of future crises.

For today, however, the priority is narrower and more urgent. Millions of people are facing acute food insecurity. Hundreds of thousands are facing specifically famine-like conditions. The tools required to respond exist, the organisations capable of delivering response are operational, and the political and financial commitments required to scale the response to the situation can be mobilised if the decisions are made.

Whether those decisions will be made at the scale and speed that the situation requires will be a test — not for the people affected, who have no choice but to endure, but for the international community whose choices will determine how many of them will live, and how many will not, through the period now unfolding. The assessments released today have made the case. What happens next will depend on those who receive them.