Three days to learn how to prevent rather than cure. Opened on 13 October, the International Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience in Africa closes on Thursday in Maputo. It is organised by the African Union Commission, the Mozambican government and the SADC Secretariat.
The choice of host country was no accident. President Daniel Chapo, appointed AU Champion for Disaster Risk Reduction, has made climate resilience a central priority of his term, in a region regularly hit by cyclones, floods and droughts. Ministers, regional economic communities, financial institutions, researchers, civil society and the private sector were invited to Maputo. For the African Union, the aim is clear: to build a continent able to anticipate shocks instead of simply absorbing them.
The timing gives the meeting particular weight. Gathered in Lusaka in June, some 70 climate experts from all of Africa’s regional economic communities delivered a worrying assessment at the 21st African Continental Climate Outlook Forum (ACCOF21). The 2026 El Niño ranks among the most intense in recent decades and is already causing severe drought in the Sahel. According to an AU note prepared for an extraordinary meeting of its specialised technical committee, the phenomenon is expected to strengthen towards the end of the year, with a peak anticipated from November.
The effects are already visible in the fields. In Ghana, the regulator COCOBOD expects cocoa output to fall by at least 16% in the 2026/27 season, citing among other factors the likelihood of El Niño conditions and excessive rain in May and June.
Recent figures underline the urgency. In 2025, more than 8.5 million people were affected by drought in East Africa, while floods killed more than 200 people in Nigeria in May and more than 160 in the DRC in April.
What Maputo will deliver in practice remains to be seen. The conference conclusions had not yet been published at the time of writing, but they will be closely watched by governments that have little time left to prepare before El Niño’s expected peak.