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Extensive flooding in more than two dozen African countries due to higher-than-average rainfall has resulted in thousands of fatalities, millions of people displaced, and devastated infrastructure.
Record Rainfall
27 countries in Africa’s tropical zone experienced unusually heavy rainfall in 2024 compared to their historical norms. These increases in the quantity and intensity of rainfall in Africa mirror patterns seen elsewhere around the globe.
Flooding caused by the extensive rainfall impacted roughly 11 million people, resulting in an estimated:
- 2,500 fatalities
- 4 million people displaced
- Millions of hectares of croplands inundated
- Hundreds of thousands of livestock lost
- Hundreds of healthcare facilities destroyed or damaged
- 10 million children in Niger, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Mali being unable to attend school as thousands of schools were flooded or converted into temporary housing for displaced people.
West and Central Africa’s rainy season typically runs from June through September. However, severe flooding persisted into November in central and southern Chad, northern Cameroon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, central and southern Mali, southern Niger, northern Nigeria, Senegal, and northern Sierra Leone.
Populations have been further impacted by the associated health risks brought on by the heavy rains and contaminated water supplies (such as a rise in malaria, pneumonia, and cholera).
The 2.4 million people displaced due to the floods have compounded the strain felt from Africa’s record 45 million forcibly displaced people—largely as a result of conflict.
A New Normal?
The 2024 floods in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad are being compared to historic floods that hit these countries in 2022—the result of rainfall that was 20 percent higher than average. In Chad, the 2022 rainfall was the heaviest in 30 years. That 2024 is being compared to these record levels suggests that such extreme weather events may no longer be rare and may be expected to become more frequent.
Annual precipitation data compiled by the World Bank for countries that were most impacted by flooding indicates that 2024 was less an aberration and more a continuation of a pattern of increased rainfall over the past 5 years compared to a baseline from the previous three decades.