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WATER EDUCATION AND INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENTThe impacts of drought are diverse and complex, threatening crop yields,productivity, livestock and wildlifeconsumer sectors, improve their abilities to perform their core rolesand responsibilities, solve problems, define and achieve objectives,understand and address needs and effectively work together in orderto ensure the safe and productive use of wastewater in agriculture”. 4This definition carries important implications for the differentlevels of cooperation and capacity development activities atthe individual, organizational and system levels. At the systemlevel, several government ministries with their own policies,laws, regulations and standards cooperate and exchange experienceson wastewater use in agriculture to raise awareness amongeach other and learn from successful policies in similar contexts.At the organizational level, government agencies and institutionssuch as ministries of agriculture, water, environment andhealth can cooperate and capitalize on their experiences from thediverse nature of the respective ministries with respect to infrastructure,human, financial and information resources. At theindividual level, various skilled professionals from public health,agriculture, research, engineering, education and other sectorscan exchange experiences and share lessons with each other.Cooperation is at the heart of the SUWA project structure:between individuals, between institutions and organizations, andbetween governments. Through its regional workshops and onlineplatform 5 , the project has:• drawn on the international expertise, standards and innovationsof various expert groups and research institutes involved in thespirit of cooperation work• enabled knowledge and technology sharing among participantsand learning from each others’ experience of best practiceimplementation, especially those between planning andmanagement bodies from various developing countries• ensured the cooperation of UN-Water members and partners aswell as other collaborative partners of the project• improved knowledge and skills on the safe use of wastewaterin agriculture, also acquired through the exchange of lessonslearned and the cooperation of participants with each other.Image: Curt CarnemarkCapacity Development to Support NationalDrought Management Policies initiativeDrought is one of the world’s worst natural hazards, 6with long-term social, economic and environmentalimpacts, and often referred to as a “creeping phenomenon”.7 Generally, droughts emanate from a deficiencyof precipitation extended over a long period of time.Yet there is no single, universally accepted definitionof drought because of its multifaceted nature and itsdiverse impacts across regions.What is clear, however, is that the impacts ofdrought are diverse and complex in nature. The mostdirect impacts include reduced crop yield, diminishedrangeland and forest productivity and low water levels.Drought threatens livestock as well as wildlife and fishhabitats while it increases fire hazard. According to theInternational Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction in1995, drought accounts for 33 per cent of the peopleaffected by natural disasters, 22 per cent of the damagefrom disasters and 3 per cent of the number of deathsattributed to natural hazards. Though drought affectsvirtually all climatic regions, those most affectedinclude the horn of Africa, Australia, Brazil, CentralAsia, China, England and Wales, India, South-EasternEurope and the United States of America. Drought isexpected to increase in frequency and extent due toclimate change. The fraction of land surface area experiencingdrought conditions had grown from 10-15per cent in the early 1970s to more than 30 per centby early 2000. 8The newly started UN-Water initiative onCapacity Development to Support National DroughtManagement Policies was launched in March2013. Under UN-Water, the World MeteorologicalOrganization, United Nations Convention to CombatDesertification, FAO and UNW-DPC will cooperatein this initiative throughout 2012-2013 to raise thecapacity of stakeholders at all levels to support thedevelopment of risk-based national drought managementpolicies, based on elements proposed in thecompendium of drought management policy. 9Despite the repeated occurrence of drought andits tremendous effects on livelihoods and economiesthroughout human history, few concerted efforts aretaking place to formulate and adopt national droughtmanagement policies. Moving countries away fromcrisis management to a more proactive, risk-basedapproach to national drought management policiesrequires the involvement of stakeholders at differentlevels. To ensure the effectiveness of a transition tothe new paradigm, capacities need to be developed invarious ministries and national institutions.The differences between countries in terms of theirvulnerability and institutional capacities will call fordifferent drought management policies. As droughtmanagement strategies need to take into account thespecific national contexts of existing capacities andpriorities, no single, optimal drought managementstrategy can be prescribed for all countries. 10[ 102 ]