• Global climate patterns in 2023 and 2024 set the stage for severe drought impacts worldwide that are continuing into 2025, shows the UN report titled ‘Drought Hotspots Around the World 2023-2025’.

• Fuelled by climate change and relentless pressure on land and water resources, some of the most widespread and damaging drought events in recorded history have taken place since 2023, according to the report. 

• The 2023-2024 El Nino event amplified already harsh climate change impacts, triggering dry conditions across major agricultural and ecological zones. Drought’s impacts hit hardest in climate hotspots, regions already suffering from warming trends, population pressures, and fragile infrastructure.

• Prepared by the US National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), with support from the International Drought Resilience Alliance (IDRA), the latest report provides a comprehensive account of how droughts compound poverty, hunger, energy insecurity, and ecosystem collapse.

• Understanding which areas and populations were most affected, and why, is essential for informing future mitigation strategies, improving resilience planning, and supporting equitable policy responses.

A wide-ranging crisis

The report identifies the regions of the world that were most severely affected by droughts in 2023–2024, with some continuing into 2025.

Africa: 

• Over 90 million people across Eastern and Southern Africa face acute hunger. Some areas have been enduring their worst ever recorded drought.

• Southern Africa, already drought-prone, was devastated with roughly one-sixth of the population (68 million) needing food aid in August 2024.

• In Somalia, the government estimated 43,000 people died in 2022 alone due to drought-linked hunger. As of early 2025, 4.4 million people — a quarter of the population — face crisis-level food insecurity, including 784,000 expected to reach emergency levels.

• Zambia suffered one of the world’s worst energy crises as the Zambezi River in April 2024 plummeted to 20 per cent of its long-term average. The country’s largest hydroelectric plant, the Kariba Dam, fell to 7 per cent generation capacity, causing blackouts of up to 21 hours per day.

Mediterranean

• Spain: Water shortages hit agriculture, tourism, and domestic supply. By September 2023, two years of drought and record heat caused a 50 per cent drop in Spain’s olive crop, causing its olive oil prices to double across the country.

• Morocco: The sheep population was 38 per cent smaller in 2025 relative to 2016, prompting a royal plea to cancel traditional Eid sacrifices.

Latin America

• Amazon Basin: Record-low river levels in 2023 and 2024 led to mass deaths of fish and endangered dolphins, and disrupted drinking water and transport for hundreds of thousands. As deforestation and fires intensify, the Amazon risks transitioning from a carbon sink to a carbon source.

• Panama Canal: Water levels dropped so low that transits were slashed by over one-third (from 38 to 24 ships daily between October 2023 and January 2024), causing major global trade disruptions. 

Southeast Asia

• Drought disrupted production and supply chains of key crops such as rice, coffee, and sugar. In 2023-2024, dry conditions in Thailand and India, for example, triggered shortages leading to a 8.9 per cent increase in the price of sugar and sweets in the US.

Women, children among the most affected

• Most vulnerable to the effects of drought: Women, children, the elderly, pastoralists, subsistence farmers, and people with chronic illness. 

• Health risks include cholera outbreaks, acute malnutrition, dehydration, and exposure to polluted water.

• The report highlights in particular the disproportionate toll on women and children.

• In Eastern Africa, forced child marriages more than doubled as families sought dowries to survive. Though outlawed in Ethiopia, child marriages more than doubled in frequency in the four regions hit hardest by the drought. Young girls who marry can bring their family income in the form of dowry while lessening the financial burden of providing food and other necessities.

• In Zimbabwe, entire school districts saw mass dropouts due to hunger, costs, and sanitation issues for girls.

Recommendations

The report calls for urgent investments in drought preparedness, including:

• Stronger early warning systems and real-time drought and drought impact monitoring, including conditions contributing to food and water insecurity.

• Nature-based solutions such as watershed restoration and indigenous crop use.

• Resilient infrastructure, including off-grid energy and alternative water supply technologies.

• Gender-responsive adaptation, ensuring that women and girls are not further marginalised.

• Global cooperation, especially in protecting transboundary river basins and trade routes.

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification

• The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is the sole legally binding international agreement linking environment and development to sustainable land management. 

• The Convention addresses specifically the arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, known as the drylands, where some of the most vulnerable ecosystems and peoples can be found.

• The Convention was adopted in Paris on June 17, 1994 and entered into force on December 26, 1996 after the 50th ratification was received.

• It is the only legally binding framework set up to address desertification and the effects of drought. 

• There are 197 Parties to the Convention, including 196 country Parties and the European Union.

• The Convention’s 197 Parties work together to improve the living conditions for people in drylands, to maintain and restore land and soil productivity, and to mitigate the effects of drought. 

• Parties to the Convention meet in Conferences of the Parties (COP) every two years, as well as in technical meetings throughout the year, to advance the aims and ambitions of the Convention and achieve progress in its implementation.

• It unites governments, scientists, policymakers, private sector and communities around a shared vision and global action to restore and manage the world’s land for the sustainability of humanity and the planet.

• The UNCCD is particularly committed to a bottom-up approach, encouraging the participation of local people in combating desertification and land degradation. 

• The UNCCD Secretariat facilitates cooperation between developed and developing countries, particularly around knowledge and technology transfer for sustainable land management.

Manorama Yearbook app is now available on Google Play Store and iOS App Store