A deepening global drought crisis is pushing more than 90mn people to the brink of starvation, with mounting impacts on food, water and energy systems, according to a report released on July 1 by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, the International Drought Resilience Alliance, and the US National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC), The Guardian reports.

The study warns that climate breakdown, water mismanagement, and rising global temperatures are driving a “slow-moving catastrophe” with widespread economic and humanitarian consequences.

In eastern and southern Africa, record-breaking droughts have led to crop failures, livestock deaths and mass displacement. In Somalia, a quarter of the population faces acute hunger, while Zimbabwe’s corn production fell 70% in 2023, with 9,000 cattle lost.

“This is not a dry spell. This is a slow-moving global catastrophe, the worst I’ve ever seen,” Mark Svoboda, director of the NDMC and co-author of the report, told The Guardian. One-sixth of southern Africa’s population was already in need of food aid as of August last year.

In Latin America, drought has drastically reduced water levels in the Panama Canal, cutting shipping traffic by over one-third and pushing up global trade costs. In Morocco, six consecutive years of drought led to a 57% water deficit by early 2024. In Spain, olive production fell by 50%, doubling prices. Meanwhile in Turkey, land degradation has left 88% of the country at risk of desertification, and aquifer depletion has triggered the formation of sinkholes. Svoboda described the Mediterranean region as the “canaries in the coalmine for all modern economies.”

The report also outlines how El Niño weather conditions in 2023–2024 worsened an already fragile global water system. Heatwaves and reduced precipitation caused water shortages, crop failures and power rationing in multiple regions. The drought has disrupted global supply chains for key commodities such as rice, coffee and sugar. Drought in Thailand and India, for instance, pushed sugar prices in the US up 9% in 2023–2024. Demand for fresh water is forecast to outstrip supply by 40% by the end of this decade, with over half the world’s food production at risk within 25 years.

Drought is now a “silent killer” according to the report. It is here, and it is escalating.