Six-country IPC projections put 16.4 million people in crisis hunger by March 2027

Take the difference between the two regional figures and the increase is 3.8 million people in IPC Phase 3 or worse ^[1][14]. Two countries account for about a third of it. Uganda's projected 4.4 million is a 22% rise, so the earlier figure sits near 3.6 million and the increase near 800,000 ^[6][15]. Zambia's 80% rise to more than 1.2 million implies a starting point near 670,000 and an increase near 530,000 ^[7][16]. Between them that is roughly 1.3 million of the 3.8 million, or about 35% ^[17].

Save the Children puts the increase in children at 30%, from 6 million to 8 million ^[2][3]. Those two rounded figures give 33% ^[18]. The people-level increase, 3.8 million on a base of 12.6 million, is 30.2% ^[19].

The six countries are a selected set. Save the Children said the analysis covered only countries with recent IPC reports where El Nino is projected to have devastating effects, a set that selects on data availability and on expected harm at the same time ^[4]. New hunger data for Somalia, already flagged as at risk of El Nino-related floods, was still to come when the analysis was published ^[5].

The projections count people, and the analysis is explicit that the super El Nino drives the surge only in part ^[1]. Save the Children named the other conditions it is unfolding against: conflict, hunger, displacement, economic instability and humanitarian funding cuts ^[10]. There is no El Nino-free comparison set here, and there cannot be one, so 3.8 million is a projected change in the number of people in crisis, and it does not isolate what the weather itself adds.

Madagascar has the most specific clinical figure. About 502,000 children under five, one in ten, are expected to suffer acute malnutrition between May 2026 and April 2027, including about 78,000 with severe acute malnutrition, the deadliest form, which requires urgent medical treatment ^[9]. That severe group is about 16% of the acute caseload ^[20].

Yvonne Arunga, regional director for Save the Children in East and Southern Africa, said El Nino is coming, that it is known which children are most at risk, and that anticipatory action works ^[12]. She also said governments "must turn early warnings into early action to protect essential services like schools, hospitals, water and social protection systems before the crisis hits" ^[22]. The published analysis does not set out the evidence behind the third of those three statements. That is the one a donor releasing money six months early would be relying on.