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Symbolic image: African Development Bank puts approaching 'super' El Niño cost at $10-20 billionSymbolic image

African Development Bank puts approaching 'super' El Niño cost at $10-20 billion

2 sources

The African Development Bank's top climate expert has estimated that an approaching 'super' El Niño could cause $10 billion to $20 billion in damage across African economies and trigger mass migration from the hardest-hit areas. Heavily affected countries would lose an average of one to two per cent of GDP, on top of risks to food and water security, government finances and banking sectors. It is the first figure of its kind published by a major multilateral development bank in connection with El Niño.

What happened

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has attached a number to the economic damage an approaching El Niño could inflict on the continent. In an interview reported by Reuters and carried on 26 July 2026 by the South China Morning Post, the bank's director for climate change and green growth said the event alone is likely to reduce the GDP of heavily affected countries by an average of one to two per cent, which he put at roughly $10 billion to $20 billion across Africa. Forecasters are warning that the El Niño pattern could turn into one of the strongest ever recorded if current Pacific Ocean warming trends continue — the reason it is being described in reporting as a 'super' or 'Godzilla' event. In Africa, El Niño is frequently associated with severe drought, flooding and storms. Beyond the direct threat to food and water security, the AfDB warns of second-order damage: if disasters destroy infrastructure, government finances and banking sectors could be undermined as cash-strapped countries struggle to repay the loans connected to those assets. The bank also expects large-scale migration out of the worst-affected areas. No country-by-country breakdown of the estimate was provided.

The view from outside

Neither of the available sources originates in an affected country; both report the AfDB's assessment rather than contesting it. The South China Morning Post, republishing the Reuters interview, frames the warning within the wider climate-finance debate, leading with a UN estimate that by 2035 developing countries will collectively need around $365 billion each year to tackle climate change. In that framing the projected African losses appear as one item within a far larger and unfunded bill, rather than as an isolated weather emergency. The Reuters item available here presents the same material more narrowly as an economic-risk story, headlined on the size of the hit and attributed to the AfDB's climate chief.

What's new

According to the South China Morning Post, the $10-20 billion figure is the first estimate given by a major multilateral development bank in relation to El Niño, moving the discussion from meteorological warnings to a costed economic projection. It also sits awkwardly against the AfDB's own most recent published outlook: forecasts issued in May predicted 4.2 per cent growth for Africa as a whole this year, rising to 4.4 per cent in 2027, on the assumption that the US-Israeli war on Iran eases. Those projections were made before the 'super' El Niño forecasts emerged and therefore do not account for them. The bank's climate director added that the event was unlikely to be a one-off.

What could happen next

If Pacific warming continues along current lines and the event reaches the strength forecasters describe, the damage pathway the AfDB sketches would begin with drought, flooding and storm losses and run through food and water shortages into displacement, with public finances and lenders exposed where destroyed infrastructure was debt-financed. That would leave the May growth projections in need of revision and would sharpen African demands for climate finance of the kind the UN estimate quantifies. A weaker outcome is also possible: the warming trend may not persist at the level assumed, in which case losses would fall below the stated range, though the bank's caution that such events are unlikely to be one-offs means the exposure would remain for coming seasons. Because the AfDB published no country-level breakdown, a further step could be other development banks, governments or donors producing their own national estimates, which would determine where any pre-emptive financing or relief planning is concentrated.

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