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By Nathan Lee Engle, Lara Loske-García and Natalia Limones
Executive Summary
The Drought Risk and Resilience Assessment (DRRA) framework provides guidance for assessing drought risk and identifying interventions for increasing drought resilience. The methodology is built on four blocks, which consist of 10 sub-blocks that describe a comprehensive and structured approach to strengthening drought responses and preparedness. The DRRA considers context by scoping implementing institution capacity and organization, client, donor and partner engagement, and coordination across governments in the given jurisdiction. Overall drought risk is then assessed by characterizing past and future drought hazards, impacts, and vulnerabilities, followed by a gap analysis reviewing current drought response and preparedness measures to comprise the resilience assessment. The last step is identifying and prioritizing possible investments to alleviate drought risk and foster resilience. The DRRA is flexible in that it allows individual applications to be tailored to different country contexts and builds on existing datasets, studies, analyses, and programs while focusing on specific needs and priorities. Instead of replicating existing methodologies and tools, the DRRA brings them together, fills gaps, and points implementers to suitable resources that can inform the assessment in a specific region or country. The objective of the DRRA is to provide a handbook for transitioning from reactive to proactive drought management.
Droughts have been increasing in frequency, duration, and global coverage, impacting approximately 55 million people annually. Since 2000, drought frequency and duration have risen by a third (UNCCD 2022a). Projections indicate that land areas and populations facing extreme droughts could increase 7–8 percent by the late 21st century (Zaveri, Damania, and Engle 2023). In the last five decades, the number of “dry shock” episodes has increased by about 233 percent (Damania et al. 2017). Such dry spells have ramifications for many sectors of the economy, disrupt ecosystems, and have a lasting impact on human well-being. Due to their cascading and wide-ranging impacts, droughts are known to be the most complex and severe weather-related hazard. Studies indicate that droughts are disproportionally detrimental to the Global South and its economic growth. It is estimated that droughts have reduced gross domestic product per capita growth rates in developing countries by 0.39 percent to 0.85 percent (Zaveri, Damania, and Engle 2023).
Droughts manifest as slow-onset disasters, which are typically associated with delayed disaster relief responses. Although their impacts could be lessened with timely and coordinated action, droughts historically have been overlooked until they develop into full-fledged emergencies. More recently, flash droughts, the more rapid-onset counterpart of more “conventional” droughts, have received increasing attention. Importantly, the extent of drought impacts can be best mitigated by implementing drought management plans. Donald Wilhite (2012) coined the term “hydro-illogical cycle” to describe the reactive nature of drought management that entails broad awareness of droughts only once the event has reached a critical stage and that turns into apathy in times of wetter periods. However, planning for droughts in non-drought periods can reduce or even avoid impacts, minimizing physical and emotional suffering in the process (De Nys, Engle, and Magalhães 2017).
The World Bank has developed the DRRA as a cross-sectoral coordinating mechanism for prioritizing drought investments to help countries transition from reactive to proactive drought management. The DRRA builds on previous reports by the World Bank and on internationally recognized concepts, such as the “three pillars approach for drought resilience”: (1) monitoring and early warning, (2) risk and impact assessment, and (3) risk mitigation, preparedness, and response. The DRRA consolidates methodologies, such as Assessing Drought Risks and Hazards and the EPIC Response framework, to provide comprehensive and systematic guidance for understanding and managing droughts. In addition, the DRRA is designed to draw from and inform broader climate resilience assessments, such as the World Bank Climate Change and Development Reports (CCDRs) and the Adaptation and Resilience Diagnostics. In that it aims to identify measures to reduce drought risks and impacts before an event occurs, the DRRA is different from the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA), which is conducted following a drought crisis to understand relief measures.
The DRRA prioritizes investment options in the context of country-specific or regional capacities, impacts, vulnerabilities, and needs across a range of relevant sectors and systems. The DRRA will help countries assess drought risks and costs or damages (including avoided costs) to justify and prioritize investment options.
This report targets task teams, sector specialists, and their client counterparts to facilitate collaborative programming for drought resilience. Implementation of the methodology requires deep knowledge of drought management, country context, and sector specifics. Deploying an interdisciplinary and intersectoral team is paramount to ensure the methodology’s successful application and to identify suitable interventions.
This report permits users to quickly compare available analytical tools. It brings together established and often complementary tools for each DRRA sub-block (figure ES.1 in the PDF) and provides guidance for selecting and combining them. It references case studies illustrating implementation of each building block.