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As floods ravage the Sahel, it is clear no African state can fight climate disasters alone

18 Sep 2024

African states need to start working more closely with their neighbours, both in terms of purchasing disaster supplies as well as in responding to emergencies. Many African countries are very small, both in terms of population and resources. The logical way around this problem is to pool resources.

Record-breaking rainfall and floods have wrought havoc across the Sahel, and there are indications that this trend will continue for some time. Recent years have been characterised by onset phenomena like droughts, excessive heat and above average rainfall, if or when it finally occurs.

Of all the affected countries, only Nigeria has made a full-throated appeal for help in dealing with the situation. African leaders typically view climate change either as a salvational source of new cash that can be invested elsewhere in the fiscus, or as an annoying set of unnecessary hyperboles or apocalyptic frames churned out by pesky foreign NGOs or governments that want them to pay attention to something that is not really their problem, or of their making.

In some countries, shoulder shrugging by public officials often means that affected communities have to rebuild their lives with little or no help from outside sources.

This wider political economy conjuncture requires a new dialectic of climate change that helps the continent’s nations and partners develop the kind of structural human rights frameworks that are needed to face present and future crises.

Destruction

International media coverage is currently focusing only on the destruction that torrential rains have caused in Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania, but the situation in the Sahel is equally dire.

The temptation to use hyperbole is irresistible. Cities of the Sahel look like a scene from the Apocalypse. Above-average rainfall has wiped out entire neighbourhoods and flooded out millions of hectares of farmland.

In Niger, thunder showers a month ago destroyed about 15,000 houses and thousands of hectares of agricultural land. Since June, heavy rains have further claimed 273 lives and left more than 700,000 people homeless, according to the Interior Ministry.

In Mali, the deluge has caused widespread damage in four regions of the country: Bamako, Ségou, Koulikoro and Gao. About 45 people have died and more than 20,000 homes have been destroyed since heavy rains started.

In Nigeria, starting from 8 September, rainfall caused the Alau Dam in Maiduguri, Borno State, to overflow, setting off a series of tragedies. Half the city was submerged following heavy rainfall on the morning of 10 September, and more than 37 people drowned, either in their homes or while trying to reach higher ground.

Drowned

Animals from the city zoo either drowned or escaped into Maiduguri. People have been using canoes and makeshift rafts to salvage what they can of their belongings.

Chad and Cameroon are dealing with similar challenges. In Chad, above-average rainfall has claimed more than 341 lives since June 2024. Official data released by the Chadian government suggests that 164,000 houses have been destroyed, almost 70,000 head of cattle have been lost and more than 259,000 hectares of farmland has been damaged by floods.

In Cameroon, heavy rainfall on 28 August caused water-retention dykes on the Mayo-Danay to break. This displaced more than 150,000 people in Logone-et-Chari and Mayo-Danay jurisdictions. More recently, heavy rains have claimed about 10 lives and displaced more than 200,000 people in the town of Yagoua. Two hundred schools have also been destroyed.

Niger and Mali may well be going through much more serious challenges, but we may never know. Those countries have announced their withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States and asked many international partners to leave, and so news trickles out very slowly from them.

Adjusting to the reality of climate change

The Sahel is warming at a rate 50% faster than the rest of the world. The chaos caused by rainfall calculated at more than 600% above average in some areas is becoming a bit of a trend.

This is particularly worrying because the Sahel region is grappling with a number of key challenges, including the erosion of state capacity following decades of fighting terrorist insurgents, as well as a youth bulge that has lost confidence in democratic processes.

Recent coups in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, post-electoral violence in Chad as well as the southwards advance of the Sahara desert within a warming trend, is making life very difficult for many people, especially young people. Clearly, something has to change quickly.

First, the capacity of states to predict rainfall patterns more precisely must be strengthened. This requires significant investment in both the human and material resources of meteorological services.

Second, African nations need to review their disaster preparedness, relief and reconstruction plans, and where such plans do not exist, new ones need to be urgently put in place.

In the past 12 months, we have seen extreme weather events in South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire and the Sahel region.

Prolonged drought

We have also witnessed prolonged drought in Namibia, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Angola.

The frequency of extreme weather events means that we must do better than hope and prayers. Proper planning and structure must become an integral part of the value calculus so that entire communities are not having to deal with catastrophes on their own all the time.

Proper planning also means that playbooks must be developed and rehearsed with communities.

Third, African states need to start working more closely with their neighbours, both in terms of purchasing disaster supplies as well as in responding to emergencies. Many African countries are very small, both in terms of population and resources. The logical way around this problem is the pooling of resources.

Also, disaster often occurs in areas where neighbouring countries can get to the affected areas much quicker. In such instances, plans have to be in place so that relief agencies can go in and offer help quickly.

Fourth, Africans are often quick to point out that whenever tragedies occur, regional economic communities are nowhere to be seen. Following the floods of June to September 2024, the Economic Community of Central African States has been invisible.

Characteristically mute

Similarly, the Southern African Development Community has been characteristically mute as Presidents Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe and Mokgweetsi Masisi of Botswana announce plans to cull elephants amid the searing heat and drought that are affecting the region. They have not offered solutions to the drought and heat-induced electricity challenges affecting Zambia and Zimbabwe, either.

The African Union and all regional economic communities must play proactive roles in preparing the continent for the climate emergencies that we are going to continue dealing with.

This entails having continental positions for issues of adaptation, mitigation and loss and damage within the Conference of the Parties multilateral process, as well as common positions on debt, endless wars and the global military-industrial complex. But also – especially – reparations for centuries of stolen wealth, genocide, environmental destruction, transfer pricing and other activities of a similar nature. DM

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