Building resilience to drought events – Desertification

Namibia will once again host an African drought conference for the first time, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism’s African Drought Conference on “Strengthening the continent’s capacity to respond to drought events” from 11 to 15 May 2015 at a local hotel.

Africa is extremely vulnerable to drought events, with about one-third of the population living in drought-prone areas and 97% of agriculture dependent on rain-fed irrigation.

Drought has devastating economic, environmental and social impacts, including loss of life, food insecurity, reduced agricultural productivity and degradation of natural resources. Namibia, the driest country south of the Sahara, is currently suffering from the effects of another drought.

Most African countries remain ill-prepared to cope with droughts that are expected to become more frequent as climate change occurs.

Only a few countries in the world have well-developed drought management policies, and interventions in most countries tend to focus on post-event response rather than mitigating the impact of drought by strengthening long-term preparedness.

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Overall objectives of the meeting The meeting will develop an overall strategic framework to help Africa improve its resilience to the impacts of drought events. The specific objectives of the meeting are to:

• Draw regional and international attention to drought mitigation issues;
• Identify needs and gaps as well as good practices in the area of ​​drought mitigation;
• Establish a framework to strengthen the continent’s resilience to the impacts of drought;
• Strengthen partnerships and collaboration to build resilience to drought.

Read the full article: New Era

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