This book will benefit users in food security, agriculture, water management, and environmental sectors. It provides the first comprehensive analysis of Greater Horn of Africa (GHA)'s food insecurity and hydroclimate using the state-of-the-art Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and its Follow-on (GRACE-FO)'s, centennial precipitation, hydrological models' and reanalysis' products. It is here opined that GHA is endowed with freshwater (surface and groundwater) being home to the world's second largest freshwater body (Lake Victoria) and the greatest continental water towers (Ethiopian Highlands) that if properly tapped in a sustainable way, will support its irrigated agriculture as well as pastoralism. First, however, the obsolete Nile treaties that hamper the use of Lake Victoria (White Nile) and Ethiopian Highland (Blue Nile) have to be unlocked. Moreover, GHA is bedevilled by poor governance and the ``donor-assistance" syndrome; and in 2020-2021 faced the so-called ``triple threats'' of desert locust infestation, climate variability/change impacts and COVID-19 pandemic. Besides, climate extremes influence its meagre waters leading to perennial food insecurity. Coupled with frequent regional and local conflicts, high population growth rate, low crop yield, invasion of migratory pests, contagious human and livestock diseases (such as HIV/AIDs, COVID-19 & Rift Valley fever) and poverty, life for more than 310 million of its inhabitants simply becomes unbearable. Alarming also is the fact that drought-like humanitarian crises are increasing in GHA despite recent progress in its monitoring and prediction efforts. Notwithstanding these efforts, there remain challenges stemming from uncertainty in its prediction, and the inflexibility and limited buffering capacity of the recurrent impacted systems. To achieve greater food security, therefore, in addition to boosting GHA's agricultural output, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs suggest that its "inhabitants must create more diverse and stable means of livelihood to insulate themselves and their households from external shocks". This is a task that they acknowledge will not be easy as the path ahead is "strewn with obstacles namely; natural hazards and armed conflicts". Understanding GHA's food insecurity and its hydroclimate as presented in this book is a good starting point towards managing the impacts of the natural hazards on the one hand while understanding the impacts associated with extreme climate on GHA's available water and assessing the potential of its surface and groundwater to support its irrigated agriculture and pastoralism would be the first step towards "coping with drought" on the other hand. The book represents a significant effort by Prof Awange in trying to offer a comprehensive overview of the hydroclimate in the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA). Prof Eric F. Wood, NAE (USA); FRSC (Canada); Foreign member, ATSE (Australia).

This book will benefit users in food security, agriculture, water management, and environmental sectors. It provides the first comprehensive analysis of Greater Horn of Africa (GHA)’s food insecurity and hydroclimate using the state-of-the-art Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and its Follow-on (GRACE-FO)’s, centennial precipitation, hydrological models’ and reanalysis’ products. It is here opined that GHA is endowed with freshwater (surface and groundwater) being home to the world's second largest freshwater body (Lake Victoria) and the greatest continental water towers (Ethiopian Highlands) that if properly tapped in a sustainable way, will support its irrigated agriculture as well as pastoralism. First, however, the obsolete Nile treaties that hamper the use of Lake Victoria (White Nile) and Ethiopian Highland (Blue Nile) have to be unlocked. Moreover, GHA is bedevilled by poor governance and the ``donor-assistance” syndrome; and in 2020-2021 faced the so-called ``triple threats’’ of desert locust infestation, climate variability/change impacts and COVID-19 pandemic. Besides, climate extremes influence its meagre waters leading to perennial food insecurity. Coupled with frequent regional and local conflicts, high population growth rate, low crop yield, invasion of migratory pests, contagious human and livestock diseases (such as HIV/AIDs, COVID-19 & Rift Valley fever) and poverty, life for more than 310 million of its inhabitants simply becomes unbearable. Alarming also is the fact that drought-like humanitarian crises are increasing in GHA despite recent progress in its monitoring and prediction efforts. Notwithstanding these efforts, there remain challenges stemming from uncertainty in its prediction, and the inflexibility and limited buffering capacity of the recurrent impacted systems. To achieve greater food security, therefore, in addition to boosting GHA's agricultural output, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs suggest that its “inhabitants must create more diverse and stable means of livelihood to insulate themselves and their households from external shocks”. This is a task that they acknowledge will not be easy as the path ahead is “strewn with obstacles namely; natural hazards and armed conflicts”. Understanding GHA’s food insecurity and its hydroclimate as presented in this book is a good starting point towards managing the impacts of the natural hazards on the one hand while understanding the impacts associated with extreme climate on GHA's available water and assessing the potential of its surface and groundwater to support its irrigated agriculture and pastoralism would be the first step towards “coping with drought” on the other hand. The book represents a significant effort by Prof Awange in trying to offer a comprehensive overview of the hydroclimate in the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA). Prof Eric F. Wood, NAE (USA); FRSC (Canada); Foreign member, ATSE (Australia).

The Horn of Africa is facing the third severe La Niña?induced drought episode in a decade, and the region is on the verge of a catastrophe if humanitarian assistance is not urgently scaled up and sustained. Drought is exacerbating the humanitarian situation in a region already facing high levels of exisiting food insecurity. In Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, 18.4 million people are projected to be in Crisis (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification [IPC] Phase 3) or worse levels of high acute food insecurity due solely to the drought. An unprecedented fourth, below-average rainy season has just occurred in these countries, while Djibouti also experienced erratic rainfall in 2021. Drought is among the most devastating of natural hazards – crippling food production, depleting pastures, disrupting markets, and, at its most extreme, causing widespread human and animal deaths. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) revised rapid response and mitigation plan for the Horn of Africa aggregates FAO's components of recent humanitarian appeals. It provides further details on what urgently needs to happen to scale from January to December 2022 in order to save the livelihoods and therefore the lives of 4.98 million rural people across the four countries and the risks associated with an insufficient or untimely response. The timeframe for the plan has been extended from June to December 2022. FAO is urgently requesting USD 172 million to provide critical assistance to rural populations, prevent the further worsening of hunger and malnutrition, safeguard livelihoods, as well as prevent displacement and further increases in humanitarian needs in 2022.