'Super' El Niño threatens $10-20bn hit and mass migration in Africa

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The economic cost of the approaching "super" El Niño has now been put in figures for the first time by a major multilateral lender. The African Development Bank's senior climate expert estimates that the event could inflict $10 billion to $20 billion in damage across African economies and set off mass migration out of the worst-affected areas, with heavily hit countries losing an average of one to two per cent of GDP alongside pressure on food and water security, public finances and banking systems. According to the South China Morning Post, this is the first such estimate published by a major multilateral development bank in connection with El Niño, shifting the debate from meteorological warning to a costed economic projection. The figure sits awkwardly against the bank's own most recent published outlook. Forecasts issued in May put growth for the continent as a whole at 4.2 per cent this year, rising to 4.4 per cent in 2027, on the assumption that the US-Israeli war on Iran eases; those projections were drawn up before the "super" El Niño forecasts emerged and therefore do not account for the damage now being estimated. Whether and how the bank reconciles the two remains open. Its climate director added that the event was unlikely to be a one-off, pointing to a recurring rather than isolated shock.

El Niño is a recurring warming of the tropical Pacific that reshapes weather patterns worldwide, and in Africa it is associated with drought, failed harvests and flooding depending on the region. A "super" El Niño refers to an unusually strong episode of that cycle, and forecasts of one approaching have prompted warnings across the continent. The African Development Bank, the continent's main multilateral development lender, has entered the discussion with a costed damage estimate rather than a weather advisory. At stake are not only harvests but government budgets, water supply, banking sectors and the possibility of large-scale displacement from the hardest-hit areas.