When the rains fail, who goes hungry? Rainfall, gender, and child nutrition in Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea is once again bracing for El Niño. In June 2026, the government announced that the country should begin preparing for a potentially extraordinary and prolonged dry season.
- rainfall
- Water Management
- El Niño
By Jessica Leight, Emily Schmidt, and Rishabh MukerjeeAugust 20, 2026
Key takeaways
- Low rainfall hurts young girls’ nutrition. A study in PNG found that below-average rainfall in a child’s first year of life reduced height-for-age and weight-for-age scores for girls under 5, while boys showed no comparable effects.
- Even routine rainfall shortfalls matter. The analysis focused on normal year-to-year rainfall variation, not major disasters, yet still found measurable impacts on child nutrition in rural PNG.
- Drought responses should consider gender. As PNG prepares for a potential El Niño-driven drought, policymakers may need targeted measures to protect girls and address unequal household burdens during food shortages.
Papua New Guinea is once again bracing for El Niño. In June 2026, the government announced that the country should begin preparing for a potentially extraordinary and prolonged dry season. The risk is real: the U.S. Climate Prediction Center estimates a more than 80% probability of a very strong El Niño event (the warm phase of an atmospheric phenomenon driven by fluctuating Pacific sea-surface temperatures) in the final quarter of 2026. This could be among the largest recorded in the last 75 years.
For PNG, El Niño brings two linked hazards: drought in much of the country and frost in the highlands that destroys sweet potato, the dominant food staple. The last major event, in 2015–2016, had a range of adverse consequences: Oxfam estimated that roughly three million people were affected, some 1.9 million of them in the highlands. Shortages of food were widespread in rural communities, and in some drought-affected areas, women had to walk several hours to reach water.
Evidence indicates the health and nutrition effects of a strong El Niño are likely to fall disproportionately on rural children in PNG, presenting a looming set of challenges for communities and government agencies seeking to blunt such impacts. Our recent study, published in Economics Letters, suggests a particular risk for girls, linking reduced rainfall with reduced height-for-age (stunting) and weight-for-age (wasting) scores in girls under the age of 5.