On Monday, 10 November 2026, the East African Community (EAC) approved a regional emergency plan to coordinate responses to El Nino‑related flooding and heavy rains that are expected to continue through February 2027. The decision was made at an extraordinary ministerial meeting of the EAC Joint Sectoral Council on Cooperation in Defence Affairs, Interstate Security and Foreign Policy Coordination, held in Arusha, Tanzania.
The plan focuses on five priority areas: early warning and anticipatory action; health preparedness and response; infrastructure and tourism resilience; agriculture, food security and livelihoods; and climate mobility and displacement. The strategy aims to help member states share resources, information and best practices so that the cross‑border effects of extreme weather can be managed collectively.
Rebecca Kadaga, Ugandan First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of East African Community Affairs, who chairs the EAC Council of Ministers, said that “no member state could effectively manage the cross‑border effects of extreme weather alone.”
According to the announcement, the plan highlights high‑risk zones that include the Lake Victoria Basin, Kenya’s Tana River and coastal regions, parts of Somalia, the Karamoja‑Teso cluster, the western highlands of Rwanda and Burundi, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar.
The meeting directed the EAC Secretariat to mobilise resources urgently and to produce an implementation plan by 30 November. It also called for a regional disaster information‑sharing dashboard by 25 November, the development of stronger flood‑risk management practices, and measures to protect key transport corridors.
By establishing a coordinated approach, the EAC aims to reduce the devastation caused by ongoing El Nino rains and to safeguard the health, livelihoods and infrastructure of people across the region.
