Don Wilhite, climatologist and professor, participated in and delivered the keynote presentation at the 6th Regional Capacity Building Workshop on National Drought Management Policies throughout the week of May 4. The workshop took place in Accra, Ghana.
"This workshop was focused on the Central and West African countries with 11 countries participating," said Wilhite, who has been a member of the organizing committee for each of the six regional workshops. "These workshops are sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, UN-Water, the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Previous workshops have been held in Eastern/Central Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, South and Southeast Asia, Eastern and Southern Africa, and the Near East and North Africa."
The workshops aim to provide capacity building and training for country participants on how to develop national drought policies that are focused on reducing the risks and vulnerability associated with drought. These workshops are focused on the development of drought monitoring networks and early warning and information dissemination systems; vulnerability and impact assessment; and mitigation and response measures.
Wilhite has prepared a handbook that provides guidelines for the development of national drought policies, which is available in all of the languages of the United Nations and is distributed to workshop participants.
"More people are affected by drought annually than any other natural hazard and the economic, social and environmental costs are staggering," Wilhite said. "Given projected changes in climate and the increased frequency, severity and duration of droughts in the future due to climate change, the development of national drought policies has become a major priority for many agencies of the United Nations."
— Mekita Rivas, Natural Resources