The Overlooked Victims of Climate Change in Africa’s Cities

On Wednesday night, June 3, 2015, floodwaters swirled around Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra. Commuters and workers, many from the informal economy, ducked into a GOIL filling station to escape the rain. A spill ignited. In minutes, more than 150 people were dead and a whole city was in mourning. Survivors said many victims were low-wage workers struggling home after minibus taxis stopped in the storm.

Fast-forward to Nairobi’s 2024 floods: riparian settlements like Mathare and Mukuru were hit hardest; hundreds died and tens of thousands of households were displaced. Street vendors lost stock overnight; boda riders lost routes and income. When floods recede, debts remain.

Problem Statement

Across eight focus countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, ≈248 million people have been affected by disasters over the reported years (2000 - 2024) in the Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX), compiled from Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT). These impacts are overwhelmingly driven by climate- and weather-related hazards, drought/heat, floods, and storms, rather than geophysical events.

Figure 1: People affected by climate disasters in selected Sub-Saharan African countries

Source: Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX), EM-DAT extract (country totals by hazard group, author’s compilation).

The pattern is regionally distinct yet economically similar. In East Africa, Ethiopia (≈74.7m) and Kenya (≈31.9m) are dominated by climatological shocks, prolonged drought and heat that suppress demand, raise food prices, and exhaust household savings. In West Africa, Nigeria’s toll ≈35.3m affected, including ≈16.2m from hydrological disasters, shows how repeated riverine and flash floods erase micro-inventories and displace markets; Ghana (≈2.0m) is likewise flood-weighted. In Southern Africa, South Africa (≈31.4m) reflects large climatological burdens, while Mozambique (≈28.1m) stands out for meteorological impacts (≈7.1m) tied to cyclones. Central Africa combines recurrent flooding and landslides, DRC (≈30.5m) and Cameroon (≈3.6m), with only marginal geophysical shares.

For cities, these are not abstract totals. They map onto informal workers, street vendors, hawkers, market porters, boda riders, whose workplaces are pavements, bus stops, riparian edges, and open-air markets. A flood is a same-day income shock; a heatwave is a slow-burn productivity and health crisis. Because most informal firms lack insurance, paid leave, or compensation, every event pushes families into debt, depresses urban demand, and prolongs recovery. In short: the data confirm that drought/heat and floods are the twin engines of urban economic disruption—and the frontline is the informal economy.

Analysis / Case Studies

Accra’s June 3 twin disaster: when flood risk meets urban form

The 2015 flood-and-fire in Accra was triggered by hours of downpour, swollen drains, and fuel carried by floodwater. The ignition turned a place of refuge into a mass-casualty site. Reports at the time put fatalities at or above 150, with accounts noting many victims were low-wage workers sheltering as transport shut down. The tragedy exposed weak drainage, building on waterways, and the absence of safe refuge points for commuters and informal workers — the very people who populate the night economy.

Nairobi 2024: markets under water, incomes on hold

Kenya’s March–May 2024 floods killed ~291 people by mid-May and affected over 300,000 people by late June. Analyses show Nairobi’s informal settlements bore disproportionate losses, Mathare, Kibera, Mukuru, where drainage is poor and homes and kiosks hug riverbanks. Vendors lost stock, food spoiled, and transport corridors closed, cutting off customers. Displacement ran into tens of thousands of households in Nairobi alone.

Central Africa’s deadly flash floods

In South Kivu (DRC), May 2023 flash floods and landslides killed more than 400 people, with hundreds still missing in the days after. These rural-urban edges supply the city food economy; when they collapse, urban prices spike and informal traders bear the shock first.

What works elsewhere and what’s missing here

       i.         Manila and Bangkok offer a practical model: flood-resilient markets that keep trading through heavy rain. The design is simple and replicable. Stalls and walkways sit on raised platforms, typically 30–60 centimeters above the high-water mark, with gentle slopes that push water toward open V-drains and silt traps that can be cleaned by hand. Roofs provide shade and harvest rainwater through gutters into storage tanks; electrical points are lifted off the floor; cold boxes and lockers rest on plinths. The result is not just drier floors but fewer lost trading days, safer wiring, and better food hygiene. When these physical upgrades are paired with micro-tenancies, basic licenses that bundle maintenance fees and light insurance, payouts after storms can be quick and rule-based, reducing pressure on disaster relief budgets.

      ii.         Parametric micro-insurance, piloted for street vendors in Bogotá, pays automatically when an objective trigger is crossed: rainfall above a set threshold, a river gauge exceeding a warning level, or a verified city flood alert. Because no loss assessment is required, money lands in mobile wallets within 48–72 hours, precisely when traders need liquidity to restock. The model does have risks, especially “basis risk,” when the trigger fires but a trader suffers little loss, or the reverse, but these can be reduced by micro-zoning markets, combining rain and river triggers, and revising thresholds annually with local data.

     iii.         Third, warnings must reach the last mile in time to matter. The most effective systems translate forecasts into plain-language actions agreed with market associations: advisory, watch, and warning correspond to moving stock to lockers, lifting fridges, and closing early. Delivery uses the channels traders already trust, WhatsApp broadcasts, SMS, and even bullhorns, timed to early morning and mid-afternoon stock movements, with simple “received” confirmations so admins can see who is covered.

What is missing in many African cities is not ideas but plumbing: a small city adaptation fund for market upgrades, formal recognition of market associations to sign maintenance and insurance agreements, low-cost gauges and loss logs to tune triggers, and standard design templates and bills of quantities that let engineers replicate solutions block by block. With those in place, resilient markets, fast finance, and usable warnings stop being pilots and become policy, protecting incomes today while lowering the fiscal bill after the next storm.

Rewire2Build Perspective

Our stance is blunt: markets are infrastructure, and workers are critical assets. If highways are climate-proofed but hawker corridors flood, the economy still stalls. The EM-DAT signals are clear: twin drivers,  drought/heat in the East; floods in the West and parts of the South/Centre — demand twin tracks of adaptation.

That means protecting the places where informal workers earn (shaded, raised, drained markets; secure storage; safe water points) and funding the tools that protect incomes (parametric micro-insurance tied to rainfall/river gauges; shock-responsive cash after verified events). This isn’t charity; it’s fiscal prudence. One modest drainage and shading upgrade in a central market can cost less than a single post-disaster clean-up. A subsidized US$5/month policy can prevent a plunge into poverty that later requires far costlier social spending.

Rewire finance and governance so money moves before the storm, not after. Treat hawker unions and market committees as co-managers of risk, not as afterthoughts.

Actionable Takeaways

1. Map work–hazard hotspots: Overlay flood/heat layers with market corridors, transport hubs, and vendor clusters; update before every rainy season.

2. Build climate-proof market infrastructure: Raised floors, engineered drains, shaded stalls, lockable storage, and safe water points at scale.

3. Stand up parametric micro-insurance: Use rainfall/river thresholds to trigger 48–72-hour payouts to registered vendors and rider associations.

4. Make warnings usable: Co-design SMS/WhatsApp alerts with market associations; include “secure/move” checklists for stock and equipment.

5. Budget for shock-responsive social protection: Pre-arranged cash for informal workers during declared flood/heat emergencies.

6. Channel climate finance to cities: Create a city-level adaptation window earmarked for market and pavement upgrades protecting informal workers.

   
   

Conclusion

From Accra’s June 3 disaster to Nairobi’s 2024 floods, the pattern is painfully consistent: climate shocks hit the people who keep cities alive. Your data show the scale; the street shows the stakes. Resilience begins where livelihoods happen, on pavements, in markets, at bus stops and riverbanks. If Africa invests now in market-level protection, fast finance, and last-mile warnings, it can keep incomes intact and cities moving, even as rains intensify and heat rises.

Rewire2Build lens: Climate justice begins at the street corner. Protect the invisible workers, and the whole city gets stronger.

References

1.        Reliefweb. Ghana marks one year since deadly floods - Ghana | ReliefWeb [Internet]. 2016 [cited 2025 Sep 4]. Available from: https://reliefweb.int/report/ghana/ghana-marks-one-year-deadly-floods

2.        Death toll rises in Accra floods and petrol station fire | Ghana | The Guardian [Internet]. [cited 2025 Sep 4]. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/05/death-toll-accra-floods-petrol-station-fire

3.        Kenya: Heavy Rains and Flooding Update - Flash Update #6 (17 May 2024) | OCHA [Internet]. [cited 2025 Sep 4]. Available from: https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/kenya/kenya-heavy-rains-and-flooding-update-flash-update-6-17-may-2024

4.        Kenya: Life after floods of 2024 | PreventionWeb [Internet]. [cited 2025 Sep 4]. Available from: https://www.preventionweb.net/news/life-after-kenyas-floods-2024?

5.        Onyango S, Wanjohi-Opil HN, Shirley R, Mungai O. Rebuilding Kenya Stronger: Here’s What’s Needed to Rebound After Catastrophic Floods [Internet]. 2024 [cited 2025 Sep 4]. Available from: https://www.wri.org/insights/rebuilding-kenya-stronger-after-catastrophic-floods

6.        More than 400 people now confirmed dead after flooding in DRC | Democratic Republic of the Congo | The Guardian [Internet]. [cited 2025 Sep 4]. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/09/confirmed-dead-flooding-drc-democratic-republic-congo?

7.        Congo flood survivors mourn lost relatives as death toll rises above 400 | Reuters [Internet]. [cited 2025 Sep 4]. Available from: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/death-toll-congo-floods-rises-401-governor-2023-05-08/

8.        UNICEF DRC responds to deadly floods in Kalehe in South Kivu province [Internet]. [cited 2025 Sep 4]. Available from: https://www.unicef.org/drcongo/en/press-releases/unicef-responds-deadly-floods-kalehe?