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

4

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

Thank you

Daniel Tsegai

dtsegai@unccd.int

17 June World Day to Combat Desertification

#2016WDCD

Subject Drylands

35

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.