Decade since High-Level Meeting on National Drought Policy: Countries call for new global mechanism to address drought risk

The conference comes two months ahead of the 16th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
Decade since High-Level Meeting on national drought policy: Countries call for new global mechanism to address drought risk
In the past decade, more than 70 countries around the world have developed national drought policies to prepare for and adapt to more frequent droughts.iStock
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In the past decade, only five per cent of official development assistance for disasters was allocated to preparedness, although evidence showed that building drought resilience is up to 10 times more cost-effective than waiting for crises to happen.

This disconnect between what the world knows needs to be done — ‘fund drought resilience’ — and what is happening too often in practice — “waiting for droughts to strike, then launching costly emergency responses as lives, livelihoods and assets are lost” was discussed at the three day Drought Resilience+10 (DR+10) Conference in Geneva. 

The conference, which marked a decade since the High-Level Meeting on National Drought Policy, saw policymakers, experts and practitioners gather at the headquarters of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) from September 30-October 2, 2024 to reflect on a decade of advancements in drought preparedness, response and adaptation. 

Droughts, one of the world’s deadliest and costliest nature-based hazards, have become 29 per cent more frequent since the year 2000, both due to human-driven land degradation and climate change. 

At present, up to 40 per cent of the world’s land is degraded, directly impacting 3.2 billion people. By 2050, three-quarters of the global population could be affected by drought.

The first High-Level Meeting on National Drought Policy by WMO, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations was held in 2013 for developing national drought policies so that responses to droughts no longer remain restricted to mere crisis management.

The policies aimed to provide practical insight into useful, science-based actions to address key drought issues.

In the past decade, more than 70 countries around the world have developed national drought policies to prepare for and adapt to more frequent droughts. 

Discussions at the DR+10 conference focussed on nine topics, each addressing key aspects of drought management and reflecting the central challenges and opportunities for building drought resilience globally: 

• Drought resilience and global mechanisms
• Drought risk governance: the regional, national and local challenges
• Drought monitoring, impact assessment and forecasting
• From policies to action
• Ecosystems
• Social inclusion and climate justice
• Drought finance
• Public-private civil society partnerships
• Health

The policymakers also discussed the need for a new global mechanism, in addition to national drought information systems and resilience partnerships. 

Such a mechanism would address systemic drought risks across the international, national and local levels and would accelerate transitions towards a systems-based approach for drought risk management and risk reduction. 

“Droughts are an insidious and dangerous climate-related hazard, which undermines food human security and is a major cause of internal displacement in worst-hit countries. It can wreak a devastating impact on the environment and economies and reverse progress in sustainable development,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.

The conference comes just two months before the 16th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification takes place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from December 2-13, 2024, under the theme ‘Our Land. Our Future’.  

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