Alex de Waal is executive director of the World Peace Foundation and Research Professor at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. He has worked on the Horn of Africa, and on famine, conflict, and related issues since the 1980s as a researcher and practitioner. He served as a senior advisor to the African Union on Sudan and South Sudan in various capacities. He has published a number of books on famine and related topics, including Famine that Kills: Darfur, Sudan, 1984-1985 (Clarendon Press, 1989), Famine Crimes: Politics and the disaster relief industry in Africa (James Currey 1997), and Mass Starvation: The history and future of famine (Polity 2018), as well as co-edited volumes and academic papers.
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Africa’s Greater Horn region is facing a looming polycrisis fueled by conflict, prices, climate and disease
The impacts of a strengthening El Niño and the lingering effects of the war in Iran highlight two separate and seemingly unrelated global hazards. But in the Greater Horn of Africa, an area already beset by prolonged crisis and conflict, these factors are combining with others to potentially create a major, multicountry polycrisis.
July 22, 2026
