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Failed rainy season with power and food stress across eastern and southern Africa

A conditional statement under stated assumptions, never a prediction.

3 min read0 figures0 tables5 notesNR-REGIONAL-AFR-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
  3. 1Africa’s risk travels through rivers, rains and power systems
  4. 2Key findings
  5. 3Systems and sectors at baseline
  6. 4Risks and capability
  7. 5Failed rainy season with power and food stress across eastern and southern Africa
    1. 5.1 Assumptions
    2. 5.2 The cascade, step by step
    3. 5.3 The scenario as a table of steps
  8. 6Readings from the other desks
  9. 7The 2027 agenda
  10. 8Systems in depth
  11. AMethodology
  12. BData appendix
  13. CReferences and record
  14. ·Complete edition, for print

5.1Assumptions

Scenario SCN-AFR-RAIN-01: what is assumed, and what is held constant.

Baseline
the 2026 reference state in this edition
Drivers
a poor rainy season with low river flow, falling hydropower and a rise in staple prices
Analogues
southern African drought of 20241; East African floods of 20241; South Africa power shortfall and recovery2829
Interventions
none modelled, the specification describes the unmitigated case
Run state
narrative specification; quantified Foundry run scheduled for Q1 2027

5.2The cascade, step by step

  1. 1

    CLI → WAT

    poor rains cut river flow and reservoir storage

    drought 20241

  2. 2

    WAT → ENE

    low reservoirs reduce hydropower and raise outages

    Lake Kariba 20241

  3. 3

    CLI → FOO

    cereal yields fall and staple prices rise

    yields 20241; no price series bound

  4. 4

    FOO → HLT

    hunger and disease risk rise in poor households

    hunger 20242

  5. 5

    FOO → FIN

    public spending on relief rises against high debt

    debt 202524

  6. 6

    FIN → recovery

    recovery slows where fiscal room is thin

    debt 202524

5.3The scenario as a table of steps

How the shock in scenario SCN-AFR-RAIN-01 would travel through Africa’s coupled systems, step by step, under the assumptions the edition states.

StepWhat happensSource
01 Climate to waterPoor rains cut river flow and reservoir storage. Analogue or source: drought 2024 [1].Edition REG-AFR, scenario SCN-AFR-RAIN-01, step 1
02 Water to energyLow reservoirs reduce hydropower and raise outages. Analogue or source: Lake Kariba 2024 [1].Edition REG-AFR, scenario SCN-AFR-RAIN-01, step 2
03 Climate to foodCereal yields fall and staple prices rise. Analogue or source: yields 2024 [1]; no price series bound.Edition REG-AFR, scenario SCN-AFR-RAIN-01, step 3
04 Food to healthHunger and disease risk rise in poor households. Analogue or source: hunger 2024 [2].Edition REG-AFR, scenario SCN-AFR-RAIN-01, step 4
05 Food to financePublic spending on relief rises against high debt. Analogue or source: debt 2025 [24].Edition REG-AFR, scenario SCN-AFR-RAIN-01, step 5
06 Finance to recoveryRecovery slows where fiscal room is thin. Analogue or source: debt 2025 [24].Edition REG-AFR, scenario SCN-AFR-RAIN-01, step 6

A teaching model of a conditional scenario under the edition’s stated assumptions: not a forecast, not a prediction and not a warning. Sources: Africa 2026, scenario SCN-AFR-RAIN-01 (2026); Africa 2026, references (NR-CIT-1) (2026).

Notes

Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references

  1. 1WMO (ed.), State of the Climate in Africa 2024 (press release and report page, published 12 May 2025: temperature, drought, cereal yields, floods, marine heatwaves). WMO, Geneva. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  2. 28Eskom Holdings (ed.), Power system remains stable with 105 consecutive days without loadshedding (media statement, 29 August 2025). Eskom, Johannesburg. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  3. 29South African Government News Agency (ed.), Eskom continues to record progress (20 September 2026: 490 consecutive days without load shedding; year-to-date EAF 67.96%). SAnews, Pretoria. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  4. 2FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO (eds.), The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025 (joint release page, 28 July 2025: Africa 307 million in hunger, above 20%). WHO, Geneva, for the partner agencies. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  5. 24International Monetary Fund (ed.), World Economic Outlook DataMapper, general government gross debt, % of GDP (GGXWDG_NGDP), South Africa, Kenya, Senegal and the sub-Saharan Africa group, latest vintage served on the access date; values for the latest year may be estimates or projections. IMF, Washington DC. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back

Cite this chapter

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Chapter 5: Failed rainy season with power and food stress across eastern and southern Africa. In Africa Regional Systems Risk and Resilience Report 2026: Baseline Edition, The State of Africa’s Interdependent Systems. (Baseline Edition 2026, Report No. NR-REGIONAL-AFR-2026-BASELINE) [Draft under review]. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).

Every citation form of the whole report, BibTeX and RIS included, is on the edition home. Cite this report

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Sector signature

The sectors behind Africa.

A reading aid: the sectors the findings run through and how strongly they depend on each other.

Select corners · hover lines6 / 15 relations

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Food and its partners

Food gives nutrition to health (0.7), land conversion to biodiversity (0.6) and withdrawals and runoff to water (0.3).

W · E · I · F · H · B

Sectors
4 of 6
Relations
6 of 15
Coupling
0.46 share of total

Strongest relations in play

  • Food → Biodiversity · land conversion0.6
  • Water → Food · irrigation0.8
  • Water → Biodiversity · environmental flows0.6
  • Food → Health · nutrition0.7
Teaching values for a typical city-region, not measurements for any place. Coupling is the summed strength of the relations in play, as a share of all fifteen.
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