Horn of Africa Drought, 2020-2024

Five failed rain seasons drove a food insecurity and humanitarian crisis for millions, and caused an estimated 71,000 excess deaths in Somalia in 2022 alone.

Water is at the heart of drought. Proactive interventions to hold the line on water security have a proven return on investment, mitigating far-reaching impacts on food security, health, and displacement. Yet relative to food, water interventions are consistently underfinanced in appeals.

We investigated bottlenecks in drought management, and the potential for water security information to rewire financing and management systems towards more proactive intervention.

Veness, W. A., Balfour, N., O’Keeffe, J., & Buytaert, W. (2025). Humanitarian management of drought needs better water security data. Disasters, 49(3), e12687. https://doi.org/10.1111/disa.12687

Academic article titled 'Humanitarian management of drought needs better water security data' by William A. Veness, Nancy Balfour, and Jimmy O'Keeffe, published by Wiley. It includes publication and correspondence details, an abstract on water security in drought crises, keywords related to disaster risk and water security, and licensing information.

Findings from the work contributed to the development of a World Meteorological Organization project, supporting practitioners with assessing drought impacts.

Science to policy

A red canoe on cracked, dry earth with a small patch of green grass and trees in the background, overlaid with text reading 'Baseline Assessment of Drought Impact Monitoring' and logos of the World Meteorological Organization and Global Water Partnership.

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Imperial College London

  • William Veness (also Geology for Global Development)

  • Wouter Buytaert

  • Jimmy O’Keeffe

  • Nancy Balfour

The project was completed with the support of:

  • Concern Worldwide

  • The Centre for Humanitarian Change

  • UKRI / NERC UK

  • The Grantham Institute for Climate Change

  • The Building Resilient Communities in Somalia Consortium

  • United Nations FAO SWALIM

  • The Somaliland Ministry of Water Resources Development