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News International kick-off of the “Capacity Development to Support National Drought Management Policies” launched

  • The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in cooperation with the UN-Water Decade Programme on Capacity Development (UNW-DPC) have initiated the Joint Capacity Development Project on National Drought Management Policies. The project was launched by an international kick-off workshop in Geneva in March 2013, and will be followed by a series of regional workshops in several drought-prone regions worldwide in 2013-2014. After the workshop series, the initiative will close with a final wrap-up conference.

    It has been estimated that droughts are the world’s costliest natural disaster, accounting for a cost of 6-8 billion US dollars annually, and affect more people than any other form of natural disaster (Wilhite, 2000). They are considered to be the most far-reaching of all natural disasters, causing short and long-term economic losses as well as significant secondary and tertiary impacts, particularly in the food, water and energy sectors. Droughts are considered to impact nations and countries around the world with dramatic economic and ecologic damage. To reduce the societal vulnerability to droughts, the initiative aims to reinforce a paradigm shift to overcome prevailing structures of reactive, post-hazard management and implement proactive, risk based approaches of disaster management.

    Risk based drought management is multifaceted and requires the involvement of a variety of stakeholders, and, from a drought management policy perspective, capacities in diverse ministries and national institutions are needed. Supporting the development of such capacities is at the core of the joint “National Drought Management Policies Initiative” under UN-Water. The objective of this joint initiative is to increase the capacities within the target countries on the development of risk based national drought management policies. This is based on the identification of the capacity needs from national to local levels to develop such policies and implement risk based management strategies.

     Project Concept Note

  • 1

    Links to individual Workshops

     
  • 2

    Reference Publications / Websites

     

    WMO:
       
    Towards a Compendium on National Drought Policy: Proceedings of an expert meeting Integrated Drought Management Programme
UNCCD:
     
Desertification: a visual synthesis Zero Net Land Degradation Benefits of sustainable land management  Combating Desertification and land Degradation
     
 Desertification – Coping with today’s global challenges UNCCD thematic fact sheet series: Water scarcity and desertification    

 

FAO:
 

 

 Information Tool for Pastoral Drought Management 

Coping with water scarcity: An action framework for agriculture and food security

 

UNW-DPC:

 

 Link to learning materials on Safe Use of Wastewater in Agriculture

 Link to learning materials on Reducing Water Loss in Cities

 Link to learning materials on Spate Irrigation

Contact information n/a
News type Inbrief
File link http://www.ais.unwater.org/droughtmanagement/
Source of information The World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
Keyword(s) drought
Subject(s) HYDRAULICS - HYDROLOGY , INFORMATION - COMPUTER SCIENCES , METHTODOLOGY - STATISTICS - DECISION AID , NATURAL MEDIUM , RISKS AND CLIMATOLOGY , WATER DEMAND
Relation http://www.emwis.net/topics/WaterScarcity
Geographical coverage Switzerland,
News date 12/03/2013
Working language(s) ENGLISH
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