Organisation :
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP)
South-East Asia is frequently affected by drought and its impacts. During 2015 to 2020, the entire ASEAN region experienced at least six months of drought. For a better understanding of current drought management practices in South-East Asia, UNESCAP has advocated for a shift to a more pro-active drought management approach and introduced a three-track framework in their publication, Ready for the Dry Years: Building resilience to drought in South-East Asia (second edition). Considering future drought risks in this region, the framework demonstrates three parallel tracks for policy interventions for drought adaptation that need to be taken across different sectors and at various timescales.
- Track 1 focuses on reducing or preventing drought risk though managing food, water and energy using a nexus approach.
- Track 2 enables countries to be better prepared and respond to drought risks through risk assessment, monitoring and early warning using climate services, data and innovations.
- Track 3 emphasizes to build-back-better by adopting risk-informed financing and insurance strategies.
For the effective implementation of this framework, it is essential to integrate these adaptation strategies into existing drought management plans and policies in both individual countries and in ASEAN as well.
This guidebook aims to promote drought adaptation as the key to drought management processes and provides strategic and practical options to operationalise drought adaptation in South-East Asia. It includes the fundamental concept of integrating drought adaptation into existing drought management process and into regional or national drought management policies and their mainstreaming mechanism.