El Niño is barreling toward the world's most vulnerable populations and the numbers are staggering — 49 million more people pushed into acute hunger by 2027. Countries in Central America, southern Africa and Asia are already feeling the damage, and without urgent early action, collapsed harvests and spiking food prices will devastate smallholder farmers who have no safety net. Every dollar spent on anticipatory action now saves up to seven dollars in emergency response later, making inaction inexcusable.