East Africa Sets Joint Response Plan for El Niño Threat

November 10, 2026 | By Semahegn Nigatu

The East African Community (EAC) has adopted a regional emergency preparedness and response plan to coordinate member states' response to a potentially severe El Niño event expected to bring above-normal rainfall, flooding and subsequent drought conditions across parts of the region.

The plan was approved on November 6, 2026, during an extraordinary ministerial meeting of the Joint Sectoral Council on Cooperation in Defence Affairs, Interstate Security and Foreign Policy Coordination, chaired by Uganda's First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of East African Community Affairs, Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga.

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development's Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC) warned that El Niño was already established and could intensify to very strong levels, with a positive Indian Ocean Dipole expected to amplify its effects.

ICPAC forecasts above-normal rainfall across much of East Africa during October-December 2026, with particularly strong signals over eastern Kenya and central and southern Somalia. The agency also indicated a near 100 percent probability that El Niño would persist through February 2027.

"The question for our region is no longer whether El Niño will come, but how ready we are when the rains peak," said Calistus Wachana of ICPAC.

The regional plan identifies five priority areas: early warning and anticipatory action; health preparedness and response; infrastructure and tourism resilience; agriculture, food security and livelihoods; and climate-related mobility and displacement.

Priority locations include the Lake Victoria Basin, Kenya's Tana River and coastal areas, the Juba-Shabelle river corridors in Somalia, the Karamoja-Teso cluster, the western highlands of Rwanda and Burundi, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar.

The plan also addresses risks to regional transport networks, including major trade corridors linking EAC member states. It calls for contingency arrangements, emergency bridge supplies and real-time information on road conditions to minimise disruptions to cross-border trade and the movement of relief supplies.

Kadaga urged member states to coordinate their responses rather than act independently, citing the region's experience with previous El Niño events, particularly those of 1997 and 2023-24.

Kenya's Cabinet Secretary for East African Community Affairs, ASALs and Regional Development, Beatrice Askul Moe, said the country had adopted an all-of-government response led by its National Disaster Operations Centre. She said risks had been mapped across 18 priority counties, relief supplies prepositioned and the Northern Corridor placed under monitoring.

She also called for faster border clearance for emergency supplies, real-time information sharing and regional humanitarian corridors to facilitate assistance across national boundaries.

Uganda's Minister of Internal Affairs, Ephraim Kamuntu, said climate-related emergencies could disrupt both regional security and economic activity, citing previous damage to transport infrastructure, including the Katonga River crossing.

He called for a regional mutual assistance framework that would allow emergency personnel to cross borders and support affected countries upon request.

The plan also recognises that the effects of El Niño could extend beyond the rainy season. According to ICPAC, heavy rainfall may be followed by drought, hot and dry conditions and increased cross-border pastoral movements. The prolonged weather pattern could also affect the March-May 2027 rainy season.

The EAC Secretariat will coordinate implementation through a regional steering committee chaired by the Deputy Secretary General responsible for Infrastructure, Productive, Social and Political Sectors, Andrea Aguer Ariik Malueth. An Emergency Coordination Unit and national focal points in each partner state will support the process.

The Secretariat is also working with UNICEF and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to support regional preparedness and response efforts.

The ministerial meeting directed the Secretariat to mobilise resources urgently and prepare an implementation plan by November 30, 2026. It also set November 25 as the deadline for developing a regional disaster information-sharing dashboard in collaboration with Kenya.

Member states were further urged to strengthen flood-risk management across shared river basins, improve the resilience of transport corridors, harvest excess rainfall through dams for domestic consumption, irrigation and livestock, and restore forests and wetlands.

The EAC said the regional framework would complement existing national preparedness plans, with particular emphasis on cross-border river basins, transport networks, disease outbreaks and communities displaced by flooding.

Source: FSX Business News