Preparing riverine and flash-flood affected communities for the 2026 El Niño Deyr season.
On 2 June 2026, FAO-SWALIM issued a formal warning anticipating a greater than 90 per cent probability of El Niño conditions developing during the October to December 2026 Deyr season.
If a positive Indian Ocean Dipole develops alongside it, as happened in 2023, the combined effect is likely to produce widespread and prolonged flooding along the Juba and Shabelle river basins, together with flash flooding in non-riverine areas.
The consortium is not planning for a repeat of 2023 so the BRCiS members are adopting a no-regret approach to help communities prepare for the high possibility of the flooding to occur in their communities.
Community engagement is a central part of the EWEA approach. The sessions are designed to create space for communities to develop their community action plans to prepare and respond to any flooding event that is likely to occur. The sessions are not meant to be driven by BRCiS NGO members. It is designed to help facilitate community conversations, organise their thoughts, bring their own knowledge and experience into the early warning process, and to decide what action is practical for them.
Discuss the 2026 forecast issued by weather and climate forecast entities, what it means for their specific communities, and what remains uncertain, and whether the location faces riverine or rain-fed flash flooding.
Facilitators must be fully aware of forecast and the risks anticipated before they explain it to the communities.
Document past floods and droughts, local early warning indicators and coping strategies, while ensuring women, youth, elders, minority and marginalised groups, and persons living with disabilities shape the plans.
Agree locally owned triggers and roles, safe higher ground, evacuation routes, support for people who cannot self-evacuate, and measures to protect household, livelihood and community assets.
Produce or update community contingency plans, prepare relocation plans in high-risk riverine locations or where they are required, and establish two-way feedback channels through which communities can share their feedback.
All outputs must be validated with the community before they are finalised, and the community must receive a copy of its own plan in a form it can easily use. The custodians of the plan must be selected from the community members.
Effective community engagement in Somalia requires an approach that recognises the local community practices and adopts participatory models into existing practices related to how communicate and interact i.e. storytelling.
Daadihiye adapts participatory community engagement methods to the Somali context. It recognises the strong oral tradition within Somali communities and uses illustrations, case studies, community mapping, transect walks and other interactive tools to allow people to share experiences and perspectives in their own words.
How the engagement is conducted matters.
The guide is for facilitators, moderators and community mobilisers leading EWEA engagement sessions, and for BRCiS Member staff supervising them. CRCs, DAC Fora and EWEA subcommittees should use it to understand the approach and co-lead sessions. Project managers, workstream leads and government counterparts may use it to monitor how engagement is conducted.
Assessed on the basis of 2023 flood extents, this table includes the most exposed districts. Select a district for its flood type, the BRCiS projects active there, and what the sessions must emphasise in that location.
10 districts, ordered from least to most exposed. Select a district for its flood type, active projects and session emphasis.
Past experience shows that even where early warnings information reached communities with adequate lead time, people did not always act. The evidence from flood-prone districts in Somalia points to four recurring reasons why a community that received an early warning did not act on it:
Explore which sources communities trust, how they normally receive information, and who within the community can help communicate and explain warnings.
Use moderators and facilitators the community already knows and trusts: people familiar with the local context, language and community dynamics, who can create an environment where people feel comfortable speaking openly.
Communities use their own observations and local indicators. Create space for communities to discuss local indicators alongside official early warning information, and to understand how the two can be used together.
The sessions should create space for communities to discuss the local observations i.e. local warning signs including river levels, rainfall, upstream information and other locally observed signs, alongside official early warning information and understand how the two can be used together.
Help communities agree triggers and actions that reflect their own circumstances and what they are realistically able to do.
People also weigh the consequences of acting too early: transport costs, disruption to schooling, and property left behind. A trigger the community has set itself accounts for those costs in a way an external threshold cannot.
Establish a clear feedback route, including who receives feedback, how it is followed up, and how a response gets back to the community.
Communities should be able to ask questions, provide feedback, report changes and raise concerns when a warning does not reflect what is happening locally.
The process includes stakeholder engagement, site identification, participant selection, community-led analysis, planning and validation.
Site selection is completed before the participant list is finalised, because the venue decides who can attend and what can safely be discussed.
The group must include residents of the lowest-lying and most flood-exposed parts of the settlement, not only those in the safer areas.
Daadihiye relies on illustrations, mapping and simple participatory tools rather than written handouts alone.
The discussions will start with what communities already know and have experienced, introduce El Niño and early warning information, and then move towards developing community plans, agreed actions, messages and practical preparedness plans.
Introductions, hazards mapping, overview on El Niño and discussions on the EWEA messages.
All outputs must be validated with the community before they are finalised, and the community must receive a copy of its own plan in a form it can use.
For flooding in Somalia, the warning window may be measured in days, and that time is useful only where communities understand what the warning means and have discussed in advance what they will do.
Questions on this guide, the flood typology and community classification, or the contingency and relocation plan templates should be directed to the EWEA Workstream Lead.
Nyasha Chikwara