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This commentary discusses new advances in the predictability of east African rains and highlights the potential for improved early warning systems (EWS), humanitarian relief efforts, and agricultural decision‐making. Following an unprecedented sequence of five droughts, 23 million east Africans faced starvation in 2022, requiring >$2 billion in aid. Here, we update climate attribution studies showing that these droughts resulted from an interaction of climate change and La Niña. Then we describe, for the first time, how attribution‐based insights can be combined with the latest dynamical models to predict droughts at 8‐month lead‐times. We then discuss behavioral and social barriers to forecast use, and review literature examining how EWS might (or might not) enhance agro‐pastoral advisories and humanitarian interventions. Finally, in reference to the new World Meteorological Organization "Early Warning for All" Executive Action Plan, we conclude with a set of recommendations supporting actionable and authoritative climate services. Trust, urgency, and accuracy can help overcome barriers created by limitedfunding, uncertain tradeoffs, and inertia. Understanding how climate change is producing predictable climate extremes now, investing in African‐led EWS, and building better links between EWS and agricultural development efforts can support long‐term adaptation, reducing chronic needs for billions of dollars in reactive assistance. In Africa and beyond, climate change brings increasingly extreme sea surface temperature (SST) gradients. Using climate models, we can often see these extremes coming. Prediction, therefore, offers opportunities for proactive risk management and improved advisory services, if we can create effective societal linkages via cross‐silo collaborations. Plain Language Summary: Eastern East Africa is extremely food insecure. Millions of farmers and pastoralists rely on two meager rainy seasons that arrive twice a year. In the 13 seasons since late 2016, the region experienced eight droughts and three exceptionally wet seasons. Seven droughts were linked to very strong Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) gradients, which arose through an interaction between climate change and La Niña. Climate change will bring more extreme Pacific and Indian Ocean SST gradients. Here, for the first time, we show that these gradients can be very well predicted by the current generation of climate models. We then discuss how such information might be used to inform risk management, agriculture, and livestock management practices. The IGAD Climate Predictions and Applications Center, Ethiopian and Kenyan meteorological agencies, and other groups are providing increasingly accurate climate information. This creates opportunities for more proactive and effective agricultural and pastoral advisory services. Trust, urgency and accuracy can lower uncertainty, reduce risk aversion, and empower poor households and cash‐strapped institutions to act and innovate. Investing now in collaborative African climate systems, participatory advisory services and proactive risk management will help counter these threatening climate extremes. Key Points: Climate change and La Niña are producing extreme Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) gradients, which can be predicted very far in advanceThese Pacific SST forecasts provide robust opportunities for predicting well wet and dry outcomes in East AfricaTrust, urgency and accuracy can overcome barriers due to limited funding, uncertain tradeoffs, and inertia by improving advisory services [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses generally focus on intervention impacts or outcomes. Less common, however, are reviews of the assumptions and theory underlying the pathways between intervention and outcome. We consider the hypothetical case for interventions to empower female farmers, either by prioritising women for new investments or re-allocating existing resources. Empowerment is defined as increased women's decision-making authority related to agricultural resources, management and production, and income. We hypothesise two avenues through which productivity or health benefits might arise: (i) eliminating female-male differences in, e.g. input access; or (ii) leveraging gendered risk, time, and social preferences leading women to differentially allocate resources. A review of evidence highlights the extent of support for the baseline, behaviour change, and economic benefit assumptions behind these hypothesised avenues. Findings suggest returns to investing in female farmers could be significant in various contexts but estimates of economic returns to empowering women in agriculture remain limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural farmers in Vietnamese communes perceive climate risk and potential impacts on livelihood within a complex context that may influence individual and household decisions. In a primary survey of 1,145 residents of the Thach Ha district of Ha Tinh province, we gathered data regarding perception about stability in climate, potential risks to livelihood, demographic characteristics, orientation toward risk, and interest in expanding economic activity. Temporal analysis of meteorological and economic indicator data forms an empirical basis for comparison with human perception. We ask the basic question: Are rural farmers' perceptions of climate consistent with the historical record and reproducible within households? We find that respondents do perceive climate anomalies, with some anchoring on recent extreme events as revealed by climate observational data, and further that spouses disproportionately share perceptions relative to randomly simulated pairings. To put climate-related risk perception in a larger context, we examine patterns across a range of risks to livelihood faced by farmers (livestock disease, pests, markets, health), using dimension reduction techniques. We find that our respondents distinguish among potential causes of low economic productivity, with substantial emphasis on climate-related impacts. They do not express uniform concern across risks, but rather average patterns reveal common modes and distinguish climate concern. Still, among those expressing concern about climate-related risks to livelihood we do not find an association with expressed intention to pursue changes in economic activity as a risk management response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]