Working Group 3 Contribution to the General Discussion on:

1. United Nations Inter Agency Task Force Meeting25 – 26 April 2002 Working Group 3 Contribution to the General Discussion on: DROUGHT Risk, Vulnerability and Impact Assessment

2. Drought Management Challenge Why is it that despite the gradual onsite (‘creeping’) of droughts, we are still unable to reduce the risk ofdrought? • Isn’t it suppose to be easier to manage as TIME is on our side?

3. Drought Risk Drought: potential threat to humans and their welfare(WG 1)+Vulnerability: exposure and susceptibility to losses(WG 3)=Risk: probability of droughtoccurrenceDisaster: realisation of drought risk

4. Social Vulnerability and Drought Observations Drought impacts are related to underlying conditions of: ** Population and Agricultural Resources(INDICATORS: population density, cropland, irrigated land, cereal yields, food production)** Income and Agricultural Investment (Econ. Dev.)(INDICATORS: GNP per capita, agricultural GDP, GDP growth, public agricultural research)** Food Security(INDICATORS: household food expenditure, refugees, adult female literacy, infant mortality)** Water Resources (Water Use)(INDICATORS: water resources, withdrawal, per capita withdrawal, withdrawal/resources)

5. Suggestion of Four Aspects of Drought Vulnerability ** Population and Agricultural ResourcesAgricultural resources are widely varying between regions ** Income and Agricultural Investment (Econ. Dev.)Indicators of agricultural incomes highlight the enormous disparity in per capita GNP (from over $20,000 to less than $500) ** Food Security- disparities in household status and food security ** Water Resources (Water Use)- Water resources vary widely between regions

6. Drought Regional Indicators - The crude indicators reinforce the conception of vulnerability as a relative construct.Drought does not affect all nations, economies and households to the same extent or by the same impact pathways. • For the more poorer countries (drought life threatening) much of Africa is highly vulnerable on all counts; • For most developing countriesdrought vulnerability constitutes a threat to livelihoods, the ability to maintain productive systems and healthy economies - For the developed countriesdrought poses significant economic risks and costs for individuals, public enterprises, commercial organisations and governments, but could manage the impacts

7. Conclusions - plethora of existing Drought vulnerability approaches/ theories (hydrobiological, natural hazards paradigm, vulnerability frameworks, Discourse theorists approach) - more research should focus on relationships between resource, social, economic and political circumstances; on who is vulnerable and why - vulnerability is dynamic. Drought is a relatively short-term event (spanning several years); vulnerability changes at a variety of time scales, from within a season to decade-long trends in development. - vulnerability and societal definitions of drought are poorly monitored, especially in comparison to the effort spent on predicting and monitoring hydrobiological conditions

8. Conclusions • A holistic interdisciplinary approach to drought management is required to take on the drought challenge • There is a need to improve the knowledge base on drought vulnerability. Data availability problem should be solved. Data information sources should be mapped and access to data facilitated. • It is recommended that a concerted action of the ISDR IATF Working Groups be initiated to identify and prioritise key needs in drought management in order to focus on realistically manageable activities. ISDR IATF Challenge

9. United Nations Inter Agency Task Force Meeting25 – 26 April 2002 THANK YOU!