CAF Joins Global Alliance against Drought

Droughts trigger forest fires, food and energy crises, forced migration and displacement, as well as land and water conflicts.  A total of 55 million people worldwide are directly affected by drought every year.

In this context, COP27 launched the International Drought Resilience Alliance, a collaborative platform that aims to encourage political commitment to reduce the vulnerability of countries and communities to the impacts of drought by incorporating preparedness and adaptation measures.

“This initiative has the potential to create new consensus to address droughts, one of the climatic events with most negative effects on Latin American and Caribbean populations. Therefore, CAF adheres to this global alliance: to align and reinforce our action in relation to strategies to mitigate the effects of extreme natural events, which generate losses of up to 3% of GDP in Latin America and the Caribbean,” said Alicia Montalvo, Manager of Climate Action and Positive Biodiversity at CAF.

IDRA will promote a paradigm shift in the way drought is managed, and has the following challenges:

• Build political momentum to make drought resilience a priority to be integrated into national development and cooperation policies.
• Catalyze the consolidation of regional initiatives that facilitate action, innovation, technology transfer and traditional knowledge, and mobilization of funds for drought resilience at different levels.
• Promote the participation of stakeholders, including the private sector, to improve resilience to drought.
• Facilitate knowledge sharing and networking with other alliances and platforms in order to increase synergies.

Between 1998 and 2017, droughts caused global economic losses of around USD 124 billion. All of these impacts are compounded by climate change, which is expected to raise the frequency, severity and duration of extreme natural events. The latest IPCC report projects that by 2030, drought could displace some 700 million people in Africa alone.