Guterres calls for tripling climate adaptation finance as East Africa hunger crisis deepens

NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 25 — UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called for a tripling of adaptation finance and wider access to early-warning systems as climate shocks increasingly compound hunger, displacement and economic hardship, with East Africa facing a sharp deterioration in food security. Guterres said climate adaptation must be integrated into government policies, budgets and infrastructure decisions, warning that the failure to prepare for climate shocks was turning extreme weather into wider humanitarian and economic crises. “Without adaptation, droughts become hunger crises, storms become debt crises, and heatwaves become killers,” Guterres said, calling for adaptation finance to be tripled and early-warning systems extended to every person on Earth by 2027.

His warning comes as food insecurity across six East African countries has nearly tripled over the past decade, rising from 13.9 million people in 2016 to 40.3 million in 2026, according to an analysis by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development. The figure represents 34 per cent of the population covered by the analysis, meaning more than one in three people assessed are facing high levels of acute food insecurity. The regional crisis is being driven by a combination of climate shocks, conflict, economic instability and displacement, underscoring the growing pressure on governments and humanitarian agencies to move from emergency response towards prevention and resilience.

Charity Mumbua, a food security specialist at IGAD, said the figures should prompt a fundamental shift in how governments and humanitarian agencies respond to food crises. As our deputy executive secretary stated, it is a call for action,” Mumbua said Thursday. Guterres made climate action one of four major tests of power facing the world, alongside war and peace, inequality and the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence.

He said the climate crisis represented a profound imbalance between generations, with those least responsible for climate change often suffering its consequences first and most severely. The Secretary-General warned that the world was nearing a breach of the 1.5-degree Celsius temperature limit and said the impacts of climate change were arriving sooner and spreading further than many had anticipated. He called on developed countries to meet their financial co…