The present drought devasting the Sahel, India, Ethiopia has been ascribed to long term climatic changes. Winstanley and Lamb suggest that the general circulation of the atmosphere is slowly changing, resulting in an equatorward shift of the principal climatic belts. If these shifts are part of a 200-yr cycle, as Lamb suggests, severe droughts should become more common during the next 60 yr. But at Addis Ababa the 11-yr solar cycle seems to have a greater influence on rainfall variations and so the timing of droughts, than does the long term cycle.