The countries that will be involved in the risk assessment are Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Rwanda, Swaziland, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Botswana, Zambia, Namibia, Gambia, Gabon, Cameroon, Ghana, Sao Tome and Kenya.

Dr Roberto Rudari, CIMA project manager, said: "Our work will be to quantify the impact of alluvial and drought events, both for the current climate and in terms of climate change. We will apply a holistic approach in the assessments, taking into account not only the effects on the population but also the economic impact.

“In addition, we will evaluate the impact on infrastructure such as transport, schools, health facilities, public buildings and energy production. These forecasts will be made with a short-term future horizon projecting them to 2050.

"The results will be shared with the institutions that have the responsibility for defining disaster risk reduction strategies in these countries and will be of crucial importance for the improvement of sustainable development policies."

Mr Robert Glasser, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, welcoming the agreement, said: “The key element of the CIMA and UNISDR partnership will be to better inform the national and local strategies for disaster risk reduction in the beneficiary countries.

Floods and drought affect more people than any other natural hazards, particularly in Africa where millions of lives are disrupted every year by such events which impede progress on eradicating poverty and hunger.

The development of these strategies is a key target of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the global plan for reducing disaster losses.”