The collaboration between the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and the National Drought Mitigation Center seeks to aid in global drought resilience and preparedness efforts to bolster economies and communities against natural disasters.
The NDMC will be tasked with recommending approaches to integrated drought risk management focused on drought-smart land-based solutions, according to the cooperation agreement signed by the UNCCD Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Michael Boehm and NDMC Director and Associate Professor Mark Svoboda.
The Drought Center will also serve as a think tank on emerging drought policy issues. This includes convening independent scientific debate on drought resilience and providing methodological guidance on Sustainable Development Goal targets — building disaster resilience, mitigating water scarcity and achieving land degradation neutrality.
The collaboration between UNCCD and NDMC uses the latest science to help reduce the high human, social and economic costs of drought and water scarcity. The partnership will focus on recommending methods for integrated drought risk management that prioritize a strategic shift from emergency response to building long-term resilience through early warning, vulnerability assessment and risk mitigation.
At the forefront of these efforts is the drought-smart sustainable land management: adapted to the national and regional contexts, it has the potential to buffer ecosystems and communities against drought so that periods of water scarcity do not escalate to humanitarian or ecological disasters.