Warnings that the 2026/27 El Niño could become one of the strongest on record are sharpening the focus on how Africa can prepare for a climate shock that no single sector can manage alone.
For insurers, reinsurers and risk managers, the threat goes beyond the potential scale of floods, droughts and extreme heat. It extends to whether governments, businesses, communities, humanitarian agencies, financial institutions and the insurance industry can turn increasingly sophisticated forecasts into action before losses occur.
As Philip Lokopoiyit, CEO of ICEALion Group, observed recently, the fears of a super El Niño should encourage risk management across Africa.
The Met Office, which is the national meteorological service for the UK, has described the developing event as potentially the largest El Niño in living memory and possibly the strongest since the 19th century. Its forecasts show sea-surface temperature anomalies in the central Pacific potentially exceeding 3°C, well beyond the levels normally associated with a strong El Niño.
“We should be clear that this is an unprecedented event”, said Professor Adam Scaife, head of long-range forecasting at the Met Office. “I have never seen an El Niño signal this intense in our forecasts…if the forecast is accurate – and other forecast systems show similar extreme values – then 2026 will far exceed our recent experience of El Niño and its worldwide climate influences,” Scaife said recently.
The warning has been reinforced by the US Climate Prediction Center, which puts the likelihood of a very strong El Niño during the Northern Hemisphere autumn and winter at more than 90%, with a 75% chance that the October-December period could produce a historic event surpassing previous El Niños since 1950.
For Africa, however, the concern is not uniform. El Niño does not produce the same weather everywhere, and the continent could face a combination of excessive rainfall in some areas and severe drought elsewhere.
The Greater Horn of Africa is expected to be warmer and wetter than normal in the final quarter of 2026. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) says October to December is a particularly important rainfall period for Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, where it can account for up to 70% of annual rainfall in parts of the countries. Wetter-than-normal conditions are also expected in parts of Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and Uganda.
The forecast raises the prospect of flooding, landslides, infrastructure damage, disease outbreaks and business interruption across already vulnerable areas.
Flooding in Kenya’s Rachuonyo north following floods that displaced families in the region| March 7, 2026
WMO latest update says El Niño is firmly established and will intensify into a very strong event in the coming months, with big impacts on rainfall and temperature patterns and associated risks of floods, drought and extreme heat. The forecasts indicate an “exceptionally high likelihood of nearly 100%” that El Niño will persist through to February 2027.
“El Niño is being supersized before our eyes. The science leaves no room for doubt: the planet is in uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up. Sea surface temperatures are rising, temperatures keep climbing, and the world is in the danger zone of extreme weather. The race now is between rising risks and our commitment to take climate action and protect people. We must win that race,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Earth just had the hottest August on record, according to monthly reports from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Service, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.
Global sea surface temperature reached an all-time observed high in August, with El Niño conditions fuelling record temperatures across vast areas of the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. The Arctic and Antarctic each had below-average sea ice extent in August.
El Niño was one of the drivers of the climate in August and it is now firmly established, according to WMO.
Kenya offers an early indication of the preparedness challenge as all signs point to the super El Niño. The World Health Organisation says strong El Niño conditions combined with a positive Indian Ocean Dipole are usually associated with increased rainfall in eastern Africa, with Somalia, eastern and southern Ethiopia, northern Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi among areas likely to experience wetter conditions.
The warning comes after Kenya’s March-May 2026 floods affected 27 counties, killed 122 people and affected more than 42,000 people, while damaging roads, bridges, water systems and power infrastructure. The country’s Ministry of Health has activated an El Niño contingency plan bringing together national and county governments, emergency agencies, humanitarian organisations and development partners.
The EastAfrican reported that Kenya could see more than 1.5 million people affected by flooding, with about 500,000 potentially displaced. It also identified 18 high-risk counties and highlighted the vulnerability of Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu, as well as parts of the Rift Valley to flooding and landslides. The Northern Corridor, which carries trade to Uganda, South Sudan, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, is also being closely monitored because disruption could quickly become a regional economic problem.
Such exposure illustrates why the El Niño threat cannot be treated as a conventional catastrophe-insurance problem. The private sector faces a similarly interconnected risk that reinforces calls for collaboration when it comes to risk management.
As WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo noted, economies are already seeing disruption and devastation from droughts and floods and “we expect these impacts to increase as El Niño intensifies.” Saulo says in WMO’s 50-year history, the organisation has never launched “such a major mobilization exercise to save lives and livelihoods,” she said.
Insurers definitely have a role top play as was recently highlighted by Udai Patel, CEO of Afro-Asian Insurance Services. Patel weighed in on what insurers can do to prepare their insureds as the threat of a Super El Niño grows.
While insurers can transfer part of a flood, agricultural or property risk to reinsurers who come with additional capacity, risk management firms can map exposures and advise companies on business continuity. However, none of these interventions can keep rivers within their banks, clear blocked urban drainages, maintain road networks or ensure that emergency services reach isolated communities. This emphasises the place of collaboration as economies such as Africa face increasing climate change risks.
The other side of the El Niño equation
The Southern African Development Community’s latest outlook favours below-normal rainfall across much of central and southern Southern Africa during the 2026/27 rainy season. The drier outlook covers countries including Angola, southern Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia, Botswana, much of South Africa, Eswatini and Lesotho. Wetter conditions are instead favoured in parts of northern and northeastern areas.
The timing is particularly important because the forecast dry conditions coincide with the planting and crop-growing season.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has warned that the El Niño could persist into March 2027, with more than a 90% likelihood of very strong intensity and a 70% chance that October-December rainfall deficits in Southern Africa could exceed those recorded during any El Niño year since 1950.
For insurers, this creates a different risk landscape from East Africa’s flood exposure. Agricultural insurance, drought protection, livestock cover, water-security planning and sovereign risk-transfer instruments could become increasingly relevant, but their effectiveness will depend on reliable weather data, early-warning systems, government preparedness and the ability of affected communities and businesses to act on forecasts.
Beyond insured losses
The African Development Bank has warned that a severe El Niño could cost affected African economies between $10 billion and $20 billion, equivalent to an average 1-2% reduction in GDP in heavily affected countries.
The bank has also pointed to potential damage to food and water security, infrastructure, government finances and banking sectors. AfDB forecast means risk management has to move beyond the insurance balance sheet.
Events such as failed harvest, flooded roads, damaged power networks and displacement of people look set to push pressure on diverse sectors beyond banking and insurance. This means the same climate event can easily become an agricultural risk, credit risk, property risk, health risk, sovereign risk and business-continuity risk at the same time.
Africa’s recent experience demonstrates how quickly these risks can overlap. The latest warning on super El Niño is arriving on top of existing vulnerabilities rather than into a vacuum.
The WMO says the 2023 El Niño and positive Indian Ocean Dipole contributed to severe flooding in East Africa and drought in Southern Africa in 2024. Zambia and Malawi declared national disasters after experiencing their worst droughts in at least two decades, while parts of East Africa suffered damaging floods.
In late 2023, heavy rains associated with El Niño and the Indian Ocean Dipole produced widespread flooding across southern Somalia, southeastern Ethiopia and northeastern Kenya. At least 352 deaths and 2.4 million displacements were reported across the three countries.
The WMO says Africa experienced its warmest decade on record, while extreme weather is increasingly affecting food security, health, water, infrastructure and economic development. African countries are estimated to lose 2-5% of GDP on average to climate-related impacts and spend as much as 9% of their budgets responding to climate extremes.
UNICEF estimates that more than 162 million children or over two-thirds of children in Eastern and Southern Africa live in areas exposed to the effects of the 2026/27 El Niño. It has identified 13 countries requiring urgent attention, including Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique. In Somalia, severe flooding could affect up to 2.5 million people under the worst-case scenario.
The agency’s warning contains a clear lesson for insurers that early action is going to be cheaper than recovery. This could be useful beyond the predicted El Niño. UNICEF notes that every dollar invested in disaster-risk reduction can save up to $15 in future recovery costs. However, less than 1% of international humanitarian assistance is currently available for anticipatory action.
“We know what is coming, which children are most at risk and how to protect them,” said Etleva Kadilli, UNICEF regional director for Eastern and Southern Africa. “The choice is whether the world responds now, or waits until the crisis escalates, and children pay an even greater price.”
Super alliance for super El Niño
The World Food Programme is already demonstrating what such anticipatory action can look like, working with governments, communities and humanitarian partners on measures designed to act before weather shocks become humanitarian crises. Its current El Niño response spans countries including South Sudan, Malawi, Madagascar and Chad.
In June WFP and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for the first time issued what they called a “joint, forward-looking appeal for anticipatory action at scale,” seeking $202 million to protect 8.8 million people across 22 high-risk countries from the severe impacts of the 2026–2027 El Niño.
“The joint Appeal marks a shift from reacting to crises to financing action before they happen on an unprecedented scale. It draws on the complementary strengths of both agencies and interventions proven to mitigate the humanitarian impact of climate shocks through anticipatory action before they drive millions more into hunger and destitution,” said the two agencies in June.
“Evidence shows that every US$1 invested in anticipatory action can generate up to US$7 in avoided humanitarian losses. In the context of rapidly shrinking global aid budgets, these savings are critical and making anticipatory action not only cost-effective, but essential to maximizing the impact of limited resources.”
This approach offers a model that insurers and reinsurers could emulate. The industry’s contribution should not begin when a claim is filed. Insurers can work with meteorological agencies, governments and clients to translate forecasts into risk triggers, strengthen contingency planning, improve exposure mapping and develop products that release funds rapidly when predefined conditions are met.
Reinsurers can support capacity and expertise across markets, while risk managers can help businesses identify critical supply chains, infrastructure and operations before a shock arrives.
However, the industry cannot do this in isolation. Governments control much of the infrastructure and emergency-response architecture. Meteorological agencies provide the forecasts while development institutions and humanitarian organisations bring early-action financing and community networks.
Banks understand borrowers’ financial exposures, technology companies can improve monitoring and communication and local authorities know which settlements, roads and drainage systems are most vulnerable. Insurers and reinsurers bring risk pricing, capital and claims expertise.
The El Niño warning presents a test of Africa’s ability to build a functioning risk ecosystem in which information, capital and action move quickly enough to stay ahead of the shock. The opportunity is to connect these capabilities into a super alliance to face the super El Niño.
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