Anticipatory actions taken by the Meals and Agriculture Group of the United Nations (FAO) to mitigate excessive climate occasions attributable to El Niño in 23 international locations over the previous two years have protected the meals safety and livelihoods of greater than 1.6 million folks.
The present El Niño occasion was introduced in July 2023 and is anticipated to final till mid-2024. It is without doubt one of the 5 strongest El Niño occasions on file. Its excessive local weather has affected 40 to 50 million folks around the globe, most of that are concentrated in Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific, Southern and Japanese Africa.
FAO stated that utilizing fashions based mostly on previous El Niño-driven climate patterns, the group acted shortly to mitigate the affect of the 2023-2024 El Niño, working with governments and companions to provoke anticipatory actions in international locations in danger.
Examples of on-the-ground measures embrace the well timed distribution of drought-tolerant seeds and the development of water harvesting machines within the Central American Dry Hall; repairing broken spots on river banks in Somalia to guard 40,000 hectares of agricultural land from anticipated flooding; and leveraging social safety forward of drought within the Philippines The scheme gives money assist to deprived farmers.
FAO’s senior emergencies and restoration officer Dujanovic stated the interventions can be “very useful” to susceptible teams affected by excessive climate occasions attributable to El Niño.
FAO’s evaluation reveals that preventive motion is a cheap strategy to defend folks from shocks. Each $1 invested in preventive motion can generate greater than $7 in returns for farming households, avoiding losses and rising earnings.
Dujanovic emphasised that the success of FAO’s anticipated actions throughout this El Niño occasion was not sufficient to keep away from a full-blown disaster, and that when early warnings and forecasts present that susceptible teams are dealing with a disaster, they need to be instantly replicated and considerably expanded. the dimensions of such operations.
As El Niño weakens, one other seasonal local weather phenomenon that causes excessive climate occasions (La Niña) could additional exacerbate meals insecurity.
Dujanovic stated the consequences of La Niña are anticipated to be felt in some areas within the second half of 2024 and urged motion to higher predict, mitigate and put together accordingly.
Dujanovic stated communities affected by excessive climate occasions, together with these attributable to local weather change, are sometimes populations already affected by a number of crises, leading to extreme meals insecurity.
She recalled that in lots of instances it’s those that are already susceptible who’re most liable to shedding their livelihoods, so preventive motion is essential to mitigate the danger of the affect of such shocks on these frontline communities.
