Drought Risk Mitigation: Key Pillars, Management
Approaches & Policy Options
United Nations Convention
to Combat Desertification
Daniel Tsegai, PhD Programme Officer UNCCD Secretariat
WADIS-MAR Final conference
International Workshop on Sustainable
Water Resources management in arid
and semi-arid Regions
Sassari, Italy, 16 and 17 June 2016
Subject World Day to Combat Desertification 17 June 2016
Ban Ki moon, UN SG:
“Without a long-term solution, desertification and
land degradation will not only affect food supply
but lead to increased migration and threaten the
stability of many nations and regions. This is why
world leaders made land degradation neutrality
one of the targets of the Sustainable Development
Goals.”
Subject UNCCD Main Institutions
• Conference of the Parties (COP)
• Committee for the Review of the
Implementation of the Convention (CRIC)
• Committee on Science & Technology (CST)
• Secretariat
• Global Mechanism (GM)
Subject
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The UNCCD Secretariat
• Born in 1994, entered into force in 1996
• Overall Goal: Combat desertification, land degradation &
mitigate the effects of drought, through effective action at all
levels, supported by international cooperation & partnership
consistent with Agenda 21, aimed contributing to sustainable
development in affected areas
• Membership : 195 parties: 194 countries & European Union
• 10-Year Strategy Plan (2008-2018)
• Supports the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda
throughfocusingof“LandDegradationNeutrality”
Subject UNCCD Objectives
Combating Desertification
4. To mobilize resources through building effective
partnerships between all stakeholders
2. To improve the Conditions of affected Ecosystems
3. To generate Global Benefits
1. To improve the Livelihood of Affected Populations
Subject Where are the Drylands?
Drylands cover over 39.7% of the global terrestrial area where over 34% of the global population live
Subject Soil Degradation Not only the problem
of drylands …
Subject COP12: Land Degradation Neutrality
Productive land - Basic building blocks for our lives and economies
• No land issues in Millennium Development Goal (2000-2015)
• Stemmed from Rio+20 (2012)outcome“wewillstrivetoachievealand-degradation neutral world in the context of sustainable development”
• Sustainable Development Goals (September 2015)“combatdesertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land-degradation-neutral world (SDG target 15.3)”
• COP12 decision - What is Land Degradation Neutrality? Land degradation neutrality is a state whereby the amount and quality of land resources
necessary to support ecosystem functions and services and enhance food security
remain stable or increase within specified temporal and spatial scales and ecosystems
Subject LDN
Achieving Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN)
• Prevention and/or reduction of land degradation;
• Rehabilitation of partly degraded land; and Reclamation of
desertified land, through
– Policy, institutional and market innovations to motivate
change & unlock potential
– Integrate research breakthrough into policies to open new
avenues
– Motivating mechanisms such as payments for increasing the
land’s carbon storage to fight global warming, while
improving the productivity of the soil etc.
• Prediction and mitigation of the effects of drought
– Including early warning and safety nets
Subject Drought Issues
Drought Preparedness and Mitigation: Action Areas at the UNCCD
Subject
• Monitoring & Early Warning: Facilitating the methodology development for integrated drought early warning & monitoring systems that capture, inter alia, information on the incidence & severity of future droughts to better identify vulnerable population groups and geographic regions;
• Vulnerability assessment: Leveraging early warning system & support efforts to identify who and what is at risk and why.
• Integrating early warning and land use Planning: Integrating early warning and land use at watershed level to mitigate the effects of drought and thus contribute to LDN.
• Capacity Development for National Drought Policies: enhancing capacity of countries to develop & implement their national drought management policies: “risk reduction” promoting a paradigm shift from “reactive” to “proactive” emphasize the path of “protection” than “recovery”.
Priorities and Key areas
Subject
“Capacity Development to Support
National Drought Management Policies”
initiative, under UN-Water, which brings together the expertise
of several UN agencies to advance capacity in targeted drought-
prone countries so as to enable them develop national drought
management policies, March 2013 - Present
Subject
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Droughts: Basic Facts
Subject
• Predominance of reactive/disaster
response/crisis management over
proactive/risk-based drought management
approaches
• The problem of making distinction b/n general
development activities & ‘drought
preparedness’ to identify specific drought
related problems
• Failure to recognize the need of developing
drought management policies at country level
taking into account long-term issues
• Country-level lack of collaboration among
sectors & poor coordination among ‘drought
concerned’ institutions
Causes of concern . . .
Drought impacts are more complex
today as more economic sectors are
affected, creating more conflicts
between water users, i.e., societal
vulnerability is dramatically different
and changing.
• Agricultural production
• Food security
• Energy
• Transportation
• Tourism/Recreation
• Forest/rangeland fires
• Municipal water
• Water quality/quantity
• Environment
• Ecosystem services
• Health
Changes in Societal Vulnerability Source: Wilhite (2013)
Subject Drought affects almost all climatic regions . . .
Source: UNISDR (2011)
Droughts predicted to become more global , more intense, and more frequent . . .
Source: Dai, A. (2011)
Building Societal Resilience through National Drought Policies and Preparedness Plans: The Way Forward
Source: Wilhite (2013)
Subject
Key Pillars of Drought Preparedness
Drought Monitoring and Early
Warning Systems
Vulnerability Assessment and Impacts
Mitigation and Response Measures
Source: Sivakumar et all. (2011).
Subject
Towards… Proactive mitigation, preparedness
and planning measures Increased emphasis on Policy Improved drought monitoring
tools and early warning systems Coordination of drought programs
and response in an effective manner
Development of regional drought preparedness networks
Emphasis of the Initiative
Subject Key Goals of the Initiative
• Raise awareness on risk based (proactive)
NDMP, instead of the business as usual
“crisis based (reactive)”
• Enable nations to assess their national
situation on disaster management and to
identify and address the capacity needs
• Capacity development to enable nations to
identify a suite of strategies needed to
develop risk based national drought
management policies
proactive
reactive
Crisis management treats the symptoms, not the causes.
Risk management increases coping capacity,
builds resilience.
Source: Wilhite (2013)
10-Step Planning Process
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5
Appoint a drought task force or commission
State purpose and objectives of the drought plan
Seek stakeholder participation and resolve conflict
Inventory resources and identify groups at risk
Develop organizational framework and prepare the
drought plan
Step 6
Step 7
Step 8
Step 9
Step 10
10-Step Planning Process (continued)
Identify research needs and fill institutional gaps
Integrate science and policy
Publicize the drought plan, build public awareness
Develop education programs
Evaluate, test and revise drought plan
Timeline of the workshops
Timeline of the workshops
Timeline of the workshops
Timeline of the workshops
Timeline of the workshops
Timeline of the workshops
International Wrap-up, Namibia
August 2016
Subject
Events When Where # of Participants
Countries
International Kick-Off at the High-level Meeting on National Drought Policy
12 March 2013
Geneva, Switzerland
100+ Global (42 countries)
Eastern European regional workshop
9-11 July 2013
Bucharest, Romania
24 Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Turkey.
Latin America and the Caribbean regional workshop
4-6 December 2013
Fortaleza, Brazil
29 Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and Uruguay.
Asia-Pacific regional workshop 6-9 May 2014
Hanoi, Viet Nam
31 Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam.
Eastern and Southern Africa regional workshop
5-8 August 2014
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
29 Botswana, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Near East and North Africa regional workshop
17-20 November 2014
Cairo, Egypt 31 Algeria, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran (Islamic republic of), Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Sudan, Tunisia, and Yemen.
Central and Western Africa regional workshop
04-07 May 2015
Accra, Ghana
Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameron, Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Niger, Senegal and Togo.
Sequence of events (Mar 2013 – Aug 2016)
Subject
Countries’Challenges
• Insufficient political will
• Lack of Funding
• Lack of coordination
• Economics of Drought Preparedness
not explored
• Poor /Non-existent Early warning and
monitoring systems
Findings of the initiative
Subject Drylands
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Subject What is Desertification?
36
“Desertification”meanslanddegradationin arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations & human activities:
– Prolonged drought
– Soil erosion caused by wind and/or water
– Human activities & habitation patterns
– Deterioration of the physical, chemical and biological or economic properties of soil
– Long-term loss of natural vegetation
Subject Impacts of Desertification
• Drought aggravates land degradation, and climate change will aggravate drought
• Land degradation reduces carbon storage, contributing to global warming.
• The drylands are most susceptible to degradation. Dryland soils contain more than 25% of all the organic carbon stores in the world.
• Most affected are the Least Developed & the developing landlocked Countries – Poverty – Endemic/systemic hunger leading to famine – Forced migrations – Conflicts, etc.