This review set out to chart the context of the climate landscape across the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) region—identifying hotspots of vulnerability, uncovering emerging threats, and probing policy and institutional architectures responsible for responding to them. Constructed from a rich weave of secondary data sources, it consolidates evidence and analysis to complete its core mandates: diagnosing climate risks and assessing the mechanisms that attempt to adapt their impacts.

The IGAD member countries Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Uganda are facing rising climate stresses caused by rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and rising extreme events. The nearly 70% of land which is semi-arid and arid and hence rain-fed agriculture- and pastoralism-based and hence very vulnerable to drought, flooding, heatwaves, and glacial melting in upland areas. Seas are exposing coast states to sea-level rise and salinity intrusion, and inland communities to desertification and resource degradation. These stresses exacerbate existing socioeconomic vulnerabilities, water scarcity, food insecurity, poverty, and inequality, leading to displacement and resource conflict in transboundary basins.

Exposure is very high and rising for all member states, with Somalia, Sudan, and Eritrea being the most exposed; even relatively stronger regional powers (Kenya, Ethiopia) have moderate and rising exposure since the early 2000s. On the record there is an evident trend of warming, and on high-emissions scenarios, mean temperatures would rise by up to 5°C by 2100, which would carry severe implications for rain-fed agriculture and public health. Rainfall is less reliable with fewer wet days and increasing dry days, further lowering crop production and threatening water security. Sustained extremes (2020-2023 droughts; 2024 El Niño floods) have caused extensive human and economic loss, e.g., millions displaced and millions of livestock lost. Gender- and youth-disproportionate consequences that ensue highlight the need for gender- and youth-sensitive responses. Though IGAD’s 2023–2030 Regional Climate Change Strategy and national NDCs provide a policy anchor, gaps in mobilizing finance, implementation on the ground, and monitoring persist.

To tackle the climate change challenge, there is a need to construct a committed regional climate finance facility that can mobilize the USD 30–50 billion annually by 2030 from humanitarian, development, and private source flows, and mainstream the management of water resources and nature-based solutions into transboundary basins to ensure water security. In the meantime, the region will have to scale up climate-resilient agriculture by improving drought- and heat-tolerant crops, conservation agriculture, and digital agro-climate advisories and strengthen IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC) and IGAD Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism (CEWARN) in domestic early warning preparedness plans. The complete operationalization of the IGAD Centre of Excellence will organize NDC implementation to facilitate cross-border collaboration, with interventions being gender- and youth-sensitive and such successful local institutions (e.g., PSNP, HSNP) driving local adaptation. Finally, the IGAD region’s programs and policies should facilitate increased deployment of off-grid renewables, establish a regional climate observatory that facilitates data-driven decision-making, and incorporate climate risk analysis into security frameworks to prevent resource-based conflicts.

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