Energy and Environment

Drought, Climate Variability and Crisis

But drought does not have to trigger a crisis ..
Whether drought results in an emergency depends on its impact on a given population. This, in turn, depends upon the vulnerability of a population's food production and, more generally, livelihood systems (for example, farming, livestock keeping, office work etc), and how capable and prepared they are to cope with climate variability.

Drought by itself, particularly combined with low levels of development, is a common scenario around the globe. The economies of many African countries in particular still rely heavily on agriculture. Therefore any disruption to the agricultural economy can produce major shocks and these reverberate throughout the system. They affect markets and pricing structures. In the medium term they can even adversely affect the balance of payments. Indeed, entire national economies can be sent into recession and even low levels of development are subsequently affected, thus compounding the problems faced by the land user. The resultant food insecurity becomes difficult to resolve and further droughts only worsens the problem. Therefore factors other than drought must also be considered when looking at the causes and consequences of climate variability, particularly in developing countries.

Drought is a major component of food insecurity but it must also be borne in mind that the political climate, national and regional agricultural and rural development policies and practices, the state of watershed management, as well as health and nutrition issues etc influence whether drought triggers a crisis. There are countries in southern Africa where the major issue in food insecurity is the presence of high prevalence of HIV/AIDS. As can be readily imagined, drought combined with HIV/AIDS can prove to be catastrophic.

More on Drought..

• Visit our recent drought workshop page
• Drought and the relationship between relief and development.
• Vulnerability and development.
• Disaster risk management as a development strategy; the way forward for UNDP.
• UNDP experience with Enhancing Resilience to Drought.
• UNDP's vision for building drought-resilient societies.