Africa’s Greater Horn region is facing a looming polycrisis fueled by conflict, prices, climate and disease

The Conversation reports that the Greater Horn of Africa is facing what experts describe as a looming polycrisis — a collision of drought, conflict, disease and rising prices that they warn could turn catastrophic through 2026 and into 2027. According to the authors, well-below-average rains across parts of Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia have hollowed out crops and livestock, while a forming super El Niño threatens both drought and flooding. Layered on top are an unpredictable Ebola variant spreading in Congo and Uganda, protracted armed conflicts in nearly every country in the region, and a fertilizer shortage tied to the war in Iran that is expected to push food prices higher. The piece argues these shocks are not merely additive but multiplicative, each intensifying the others. Compounding the danger, the authors say, is a gutted humanitarian system — following the closure of USAID and deep foreign-aid cuts across Western nations — leaving local mutual aid groups and diaspora remittances to shoulder far more of the response than in past crises.

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