LatinNews Daily - 22 September 2026

*The United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac) has released a new report warning of the impact of the El Niño weather phenomenon in Central America, along with the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean. With the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa)’s projections indicating a more than 90% probability that El Niño will reach a very high intensity during the northern hemisphere’s fall and winter 2026-2027, the Eclac report warns that an extreme El Niño phenomenon will cause a cumulative loss of at least 2% in Latin America and the Caribbean’s GDP in a three-year period, of which half will be concentrated in the first year after the event. It adds that the negative impact on household income could increase poverty by up to 4.8m people toward the end of the decade, compared to a scenario without El Niño. As regards Central America, it highlights issues such as the danger to the agricultural sector and food security due to drought, noting over a 70% probability of droughts that will affect the agricultural sector in the coming months in the so-called ‘Dry Corridor’ (an arid strip of land spanning parts of Central America, including Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala). Central American countries including Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, and El Salvador have already announced measures in response to the impact of drought.

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