Between June and September every year, flooding becomes one of the defining features of urban life across West Africa's coastal cities. Roads disappear beneath water in Lagos, businesses close across Accra, families are displaced in Abidjan, and governments once again declare emergencies that have become almost routine. The scale of destruction continues to grow. Nigeria's 2022 floods alone affected more than 3.2 million people, displaced 1.5 million and claimed over 600 lives.
Climate change has undoubtedly intensified this crisis. Rainfall has become heavier and more concentrated, while rising sea levels continue to increase the exposure of coastal settlements. Yet climate change alone cannot explain why, despite decades of evidence, planning and investment, the same cities continue to flood in the same places every year. Long before the first storms arrive each rainy season, meteorological agencies issue warnings and identify high-risk communities. The hazards are anticipated with remarkable accuracy, yet the devastation remains consistent.
The answer lies not simply in the climate, but in the political and financial systems that continue to reward responding to disasters more readily than preventing them.
The annual floods that overwhelm West Africa's coastal cities are often described as natural disasters. Increasingly, they are better understood as systems failures. It is the interaction between weak planning, inadequate infrastructure, poor waste management and ineffective governance that determines whether heavy rain becomes a humanitarian and economic crisis.
Originally published by African Business.