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El Nino threatens Asia with drought, higher global food prices

BANTEN, Indonesia : All signs are pointing toward a record-breaking El Nino this year, which experts say may cause severe drought in Asia and other extreme weather across the world, threatening food security for millions of people. El Nino is part of a natural climate cycle of warming ocean temperatures, but this year’s is expected to reach new extremes of drought, heat waves, flooding and other climate-related disruptions in South America, Africa and Asia. Southeast Asia is one of the world's most climate vulnerable regions. It's already beset by an energy crisis triggered by the war in Iran. El Nino is already fueling wildfires across farmland, depleting water supplies for major cities and hurting fish catches in the region. Asian governments that have been drawing on their financial reserves to mitigate the war's ripple effects of higher energy costs and scarce fertilizer supplies have less capacity to cope with this year's intensifying El Nino, which is forecast to peak in December. The phenomenon may amplify other crises in Southeast Asia, according to Paul Teng, with Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, who said, "El Nino is only compounding all the other problems that we see.” During El Nino years, sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean are warmer than usual. This happens every few years and often alters global weather patterns. This year, the seas already are hotter than average, with global oceans hitting new temperature records in August as the climate warms, said Kareff Rafisura, chief of the Disaster Risk Reduction Division at the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. This intensifying El Nino may be the "strongest in living memory,” according to the United Kingdom’s national weather and climate service. Similarly, the U.S.' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said there is a 69% chance that this will be the strongest recorded El Nino since record-keeping began in 1950. El Nino's impact will be felt differently across regions, but it is expected to jeopardize food security worldwide. It could push at least 49 million more people into acute food insecurity by the end of 2027, according to the United Nations’ World Food Program. The problem will be worst in parts of Central America and southern Africa, with significant effects also anticipated in eastern Africa and South and Southeast Asia, warned the food agency. In Southeast Asia, wildfires are torching forests and peatlands in Indonesia, sending up plumes of toxic haze. The water level of a major reservoir supplying the bustling capital city of Jakarta - the world's biggest metropolis - is dropping inch by inch. As the lake dries, the ruins of one of 11 villages that had been inundated by the reservoir have emerged, as alarm grows over the need for alternative water supplies for the city of 42 million. "I would have rather not moved. There were plenty of livelihood opportunities here,” said Hussen, who only uses one name, as he ferried people across the receding reservoir. This is just the beginning, said Erma Yulihastin with Indonesia's Research Center for Climate and Atmosphere, who warned El Nino has only just begun its "super phase.” Less rainfall and hotter temperatures are putting pressure on Southeast Asia's fisheries, an essential source of protein. It's a pressing problem along the Mekong, a river basin that flows through six nations and is being disrupted by mining and construction of hydropower dams. "It’s one punch after another,” said Zeb Hogan, with the University of Nevada, Reno, who runs the research and conservation project, Wonders of the Mekong. "If the river doesn’t catch a break, we will reach a point where it’s no longer going to sustain people in the way that it always has.” Lower flows are especially hard on communities along the Mekong that depend on predictable water levels for fishing and farming, said Kongmeng Ly, with the Mekong River Commission, an intergovernmental group for Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. Southeast Asia's wet season generally runs from June to October, when rains usually replenish reservoirs, cool overheated cities and supply water for irrigation ahead of the next planting season. Drought may force farmers to delay planting, reduce acreage or switch crops entirely, said Rafisura, with the U.N. "Agriculture is definitely on the front line,” she said. Cutbacks in staple crops like rice and palm oil can have global impacts. The world's top three exporters of rice - India, Vietnam and Thailand - are among the nations most likely to be hit hard by El Nino this year. North of the Thai capital Bangkok, rice farmers like 55-year-old Boonmark Marksuuk are already facing tough choices. Apart from pricier fuel and fertilizer because of the war, he's spending most of his days pumping water into his rice fields because he no longer trusts the rain. El Nino is also bearing down on Indonesia and Malaysia, suppliers of about 85% of the world’s palm oil, which is used in everything from cookies and lipstick to toothpaste and laundry detergent. Malaysia’s prime minister has ordered its Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to find ways to mitigate El Nino’s impact, which is forecast to hit Malaysia hardest in November. In Indonesia, farmers rely on rain to dissolve fertilizers into the soil to avoid burning the plants, explained Eddy Martono, chairman of the Indonesian Palm Oil Association. "If it doesn’t rain, everyone will definitely stop fertilizing,” which will hurt national production, he said. While the total economic fallout of an extreme El Nino is hard to calculate, losses from past events have reached trillions of dollars, according to HSBC’s Global Investment Research, which warns the numbers could be even bigger this time. Analysts at the investment bank Goldman Sachs estimate this El Nino could push global food commodity prices up more than 15%. "Whatever happens to agriculture really determines whether people stay below or just slightly above the poverty line,” Rafisura said. "Coming back to Southeast Asia, whatever happens here, the extent to which countries can protect production levels, will have global impacts.”

MBMobile Business•Associated Press22 Sept

Psychosocial Impacts of Prolonged Uncertainty on the Mental Well-being, Resilience, and Community Engagement of Afghan Refugee Youth in Indonesia

Countries: Indonesia, Afghanistan Source: Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network Please refer to the attached file. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Protracted displacement remains one of the most pressing humanitarian challenges facing refugees in Indonesia. As a non-signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, Indonesia provides temporary protection but no pathway to permanent legal status, leaving refugees in prolonged uncertainty with restricted access to rights and limited prospects for durable solutions. For many Afghan refugee youth, this uncertainty has persisted for over a decade, profoundly shaping their mental well-being, resilience, and ability to participate meaningfully in society. This qualitative study, conducted by Emplace Initiative with support from the Mixed Migration Centre (MMC) and the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), draws on in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with 25 participants, including Afghan refugee youth, refugee leaders, Indonesian stakeholders, and psychosocial practitioners, to examine the psychosocial impacts of prolonged displacement in Indonesia. THE FINDINGS demonstrate that prolonged uncertainty itself has become a major source of psychological harm. Participants consistently described living in a state of indefinite limbo, characterised by the inability to work legally, limited access to higher education, prolonged family separation, financial dependency, and the absence of a foreseeable future. Limbo is a daily struggle against stagnation. Rather than recovering from a single traumatic event, refugee youth experience continuous and cumulative stress resulting from years of legal insecurity and social exclusion. These directly erode well-being, manifesting in persistent anxiety, chronic sleep issues, and a pervasive emotional numbness. Feelings of hopelessness, emotional exhaustion, anxiety, and depression were recurrent throughout the research. Youth experience a tense duality in which independent milestones (higher education, careers) are suspended, yet adult responsibilities within families and communities accelerate. The structural absence of formal academic recognition, a transparent resettlement process, or clear futures heavily fractures the motivation to learn. Planning and engaging often feel pointless, leading to severe demotivation and heightened household or community tensions. The responsibilities at home also prevented some youth from participating in community activities. The study further reveals that refugee mental well-being deteriorates significantly during major humanitarian and geopolitical crises related to them. Events such as the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Iran vs Israel and the US conflict, reductions in humanitarian assistance, and growing uncertainty surrounding resettlement pathways repeatedly intensified psychological distress by reopening unresolved trauma and increasing concerns for family members remaining in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and other diaspora locations. Participants reported that these crises compounded existing vulnerabilities and, in some cases, contributed to severe mental health conditions, self-harm, and suicide within the refugee community. Beyond legal and economic insecurity, the research highlights the psychosocial impact of social and religious marginalization. While existing literature notes that Shia Hazaras often navigate public ignorance and sectarian stereotypes regarding their faith in Sunni-majority Indonesia, which frequently compels them to avoid public worship, informants in this study primarily highlighted marginalization driven by their status as refugees and foreigners. Their accounts note experiences of being degraded or patronized as “vulnerable” or “lesser” by non-refugees who were aware of their status. Additionally, because of their physical appearance, participants are often mistaken for foreign tourists among those unaware of their refugee status and condition, leading local vendors to charge them inflated prices, severely compound their existing financial limitations and reinforce their sense of alterity. Despite these significant challenges, the research also documents remarkable resilience among Afghan refugee youth. Participants identified education, volunteering, peer support, sports, faith, and engagement with refugee-led organizations (RLOs) or other civil society organizations as critical sources of hope, purpose, and psychological strength. Crucially, youth relied on high-volume daily activities such as teaching, managing RLOs, athletic training, creative outlets, workshops, and reading to construct a rigorous “secondary routine” . This self-imposed structure serves as a vital psychological anchor: it provides predictability in times of uncertainty, deliberately keeping their minds preoccupied to distract from looming anxieties about their future. Beyond distraction, well-being was sustained by a shared growth mindset and strong, aligned support systems. Informants actively engaged in continuous skill-building, such as mastering English and taking on community leadership, using these pursuits as a process of active meaning-making. By framing daily efforts as investments in their personal development, they restored a sense of agency, individual value, and purpose. Surrounding themselves with peers who shared this growth-oriented outlook created a protective community buffer. Operating within these networks, RLOs have emerged as trusted actors offering tailored psychosocial support, informal education, and leadership development, compensating for gaps in formal humanitarian assistance despite severe resource constraints. However, while grassroots programs and personal motivation successfully convert forced inactivity into periods of strategic skill-building, they exist within a fragile ecosystem. Community programming alone cannot resolve the root trauma of prolonged displacement, nor can individual resilience compensate for structural exclusion. While refugee-led initiatives strengthen coping capacities and social cohesion, they cannot substitute for formal legal recognition, basic rights, or long-term mobility. Sustainable well-being requires systemic policy reforms that restore dignity and enable refugees to rebuild their lives through expanded access to education, livelihoods, healthcare, legal protections, and long-term solutions, including resettlement and complementary pathways. Achieving this demands concrete commitment and coordination across all key stakeholders, including UNHCR, IOM, international donors, humanitarian organizations, the Indonesian government, local civil society, RLOs, community leaders, and refugee youth themselves. Ultimately, addressing psychosocial health requires dismantling the structural conditions of limbo that perpetuate harm. Ultimately, improving psychosocial well-being requires addressing not only individual mental health needs but also the structural conditions of prolonged displacement that continue to shape refugees' lives.

ReliefWebReliefWeb•Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network22 Sept

‘The physical toll is visceral’: How Indonesia’s fire haze affects millions - visual guide

Intensified by this year’s super El Niño, fires in Borneo and Sumatra are emitting toxic air for swathes of the population in Indonesia and its neighbours For months, parts of Indonesia’s Borneo and Sumatra islands have been ablaze. The fires are sometimes lit illegally as a cheap way to clear land for plantations of oil palm, of which Indonesia is the world’s largest producer. So prevalent is the technique that it even has a special term: slash and burn. Continue reading...

The GuardianThe Guardian•Kate Lamb21 Sept