East Africa Drought and Famine Conditions (2025)

The East Africa drought and famine crisis stands as the deadliest slow-onset disaster of 2025, with the UN estimating over 22 million people facing acute food insecurity across Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, and Eritrea—a figure 15% higher than the 2024 Horn of Africa drought peak. This marks the sixth consecutive failed rainy season in the region, a dry spell described by the WFP as one of the worst on record, with rainfall deficits averaging 65% below the 30-year norm. The crisis now rivals the severity of the 2011 Somalia famine in terms of malnutrition rates, but its geographic scope is 40% wider than that event. International humanitarian funding has covered only 40% of assessed needs, leaving 13.2 million people dependent on reduced rations—a coverage gap that is 10 percentage points worse than the typical response to similar crises in sub-Saharan Africa. Compounding factors include conflict-related displacement, with 3.8 million people newly uprooted in 2025, and the lingering economic effects of COVID-19, which reduced remittance inflows by $200 million compared to pre-pandemic levels.