Attachments
Overview
MENAdrought is a demand-led applied research and technical support project whose objective is to aid the project countries in building self-reliance in managing the impacts of drought on water and food security in order to limit social and economic losses.
It came into being following the High-Level Meeting on National Drought Policy (HMNDP) convened by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 2013, where countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region sought technical support to improve drought monitoring and management in their water and agricultural systems.
Morocco was involved in the MENAdrought project from its inception. Its participation in specific activities was structured by a formal request from HE the Minister of Agriculture, Maritime Fisheries, Rural Development, and Water and Forests in the form of a Letter of Interest 3696-DSS (2019) and correspondence with the Director General of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI).
The MENAdrought project applies the Three Pillars framework of WMO’s Integrated Drought Management Programme (WMO and GWP 2014). The Three Pillars (Figure 1) include monitoring and early-warning systems, impact assessment, and planning to implement drought risk reduction and crisis response management, working together in a holistic manner to realize Sendai Framework objectives.
The project team took a ‘working with the grain’ approach (Levy 2014) to activities with the Department of Strategy and Statistics (DSS), and collaboratively and iteratively developed, tested, refined and applied the enhanced Composite Drought Indicator (eCDI) monitoring product and seasonal forecasting tools for Morocco.
This report focuses on Pillars 1 and 2, and summarizes the Moroccan drought context, the DSS’s capability for operational monitoring of drought and forecasting of rainfall on a seasonal basis, and the usage of the tools and web interfaces. In concert, these approaches support thematic drought monitoring and reporting for major crop types with a primary focus on rainfed agricultural systems including cereals and rangelands.