Team Building Meeting on effective use of space applications for drought monitoring in Central Asia

Among natural disasters, drought gets relatively less attention from policymakers, even though it has serious long-term socioeconomic implications. Drought adversely affects sustainable development and exacerbates poverty among millions of people who depend directly on the land as a source of livelihood. Many Central Asian countries suffer from frequent droughts along with challenges in water resource availability and management. These lead to failures of crop production and increase of food price and security.

Applications of geographic information can play a key role as important tools to monitor drought and water resource management. Despite the significant progress achieved in this region, these applications continue to be underutilized to fully benefit the most vulnerable in managing drought of this region, primarily because of the lack of human, scientific, technological capacity and organizational and institutional systems.

In order to support member States in Central Asia region, ESCAP, with the support from the Government of Russia Federation, has started a new project titled “Enhancing the capacity of the developing countries in Central Asia on effective use of space applications for drought monitoring and early warning through the Regional Drought Mechanism”. The project is also in line with the implementation of the Asia Pacific Plan of Action on Space Applications for Sustainable Development (2018-2030) and the ESCAP Regional Roadmap for the Implementation of the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific. As an initial action of the project, ESCAP plans to build a project working team which is consisted of a few regional renowned experts in Asia and the Pacific region.