The geopolitical fallout from drought is slow and cumulative; these are slow-burn disasters that stay out of the news until their worst effects are felt. What begins as a minor crop disruption one year can spiral into an agricultural disaster the next should disruptive weather patterns persist. Similarly on the individual level, a small-but-manageable caloric reduction can end in disaster as household items and capital are gradually sold off to purchase food, effectively mortgaging the economic future of a families and whole communities. These shocks can erode political institutions, generate sectarian conflict over dwindling resources, and even trigger civil wars.

2019 saw its fair share of extreme weather events, which disrupted agriculture and produced run-on political, economic, and humanitarian impacts around the world. 2020 is expected to be no different. Here are a few contexts to keep an eye on in the year ahead:

Forecast

Zimbabwe

Over the past decade, the people of Zimbabwe have endured hyperinflation, severe economic contraction, and more recently an uncertain transition from the Mugabe era to current President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Now they must endure a string of natural disasters and the worst active droughts on the planet, one that WFP’s David Beasley described as “unlike any that we have seen in a long time.”

By some UN estimates, some 8.5 million Zimbabweans will face uncertain food supplies in the first part of 2020 – equivalent to over half of the country’s population. With national corn stockpiles running low, shortages are expected to spread from the countryside, where drought-based hunger is not an uncommon occurrence, to the cities, where 3 million of the country’s citizens live. Some 2.5 million people are already classified as being in food crisis, and their numbers are expected to swell further over the first half of 2020.

2019 brought some of the worst effects of climate change to bear in the country, which like many of its underdeveloped peers is ill-equipped to adapt agricultural systems to changing weather patterns. Before the drought hit over the latter part of the year, Zimbabwe had already been devestated by two cyclones: Cyclone Idai March and to a lesser degree Cyclone Kenneth in April. The storms brought widespread flooding that washed away harvests and rendered vast tracts of cropland unusable.