When Advance Aid was in Nairobi at the end of September the grass almost everywhere was brown and the Masai were bringing their cattle into the centre of the city in search of grass verges that might have been watered that the painfully thin cattle could feed on.

Now there are floods as the country goes, almost overnight, from too little to too much water.  The same story is being repeated in Somalia, on the border with Kenya, where 15,000 people in the town of El-Waq are reported to have been displaced by floods.

And today Sir Gordon Conway, Professor of International Development at Imperial College, London, is arguing that Africa is already warming faster than the global average and that people living there can expect more intense droughts, floods and storm surges.

His Discussion Paper No 1 published by Imperial College’s Grantham Institute for Climate Change suggests that:
• The drier subtropical regions will warm more than the moister tropics.
• Northern and southern Africa will become much hotter (as much as
4 °C or more) and drier (precipitation falling by 15% or more).
• Wheat production in the north and maize production in the south
are likely to be adversely affected.
• In eastern Africa, including the Horn of Africa, and parts of central
Africa average rainfall is likely to increase.
• Vector borne diseases such as malaria and dengue may spread and
become more severe.
• Sea levels will rise, perhaps by half a metre, in the next fifty years,
with serious consequences in the Nile Delta and certain parts of
West Africa.

The humanitarian consequences of these types of changes are very clear.  And very worrying.

There are already nearly 20m people in the region dependent on food aid and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is forecasting that this number will increase.

The Guardian carried a particularly disturbing picture and report on the disastrous effects that the drought was having on pastoralists.

And the FAO suggests that the current drought could be followed by floods, “The effects of El Niño, which usually brings heavy rains towards the end of the year, could make matters worse, resulting in floods and mudslides, destroying crops both in the field and in stores, increasing livestock losses and damaging infrastructure and housing.”

Food prices are rising as a result, “In Uganda and Kenya, for instance, prices of maize in June 2009 were almost double their level 24 months earlier.  In Khartoum, Sudan, June 2009 prices of sorghum, another staple crop, were more than double their levels in June 2007.  Similarly, prices in Mogadishu, Somalia, still remain higher than the pre-crisis period, despite declining since mid-2008.“

Conditions are probably worst for the people of Somalia, “According to FAO’s Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit, Somalia is facing the worst humanitarian crisis in 18 years, with approximately half the population – an estimated 3.6 million people – in need of emergency livelihood and life-saving assistance.  This includes 1.4 million rural people affected by the severe drought, about 655 000 urban poor facing high food and non-food prices, and 1.3 million internally displaced people, a result of escalating fighting and conflict.”

In Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Eritrea poor harvests are being reported and in Kenya forced migrations in search of water supplies and pasture have worsened livestock conditions, increased disease outbreaks and exacerbated resource-based conflicts among pastoralists.