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Drought has become a more frequent and a major threat to human security in most of
the Arab countries located in arid and semi-arid areas of North Africa and Western
Asia. The responses to severe drought in the region’s countries are mainly ex-post
(reactive) and tend to emphasize emergency relief, take effect after or during drought
events and do not incorporate methods that support water conflict prevention. The
United Nations recognizes the need to address water scarcity and drought in the Middle
East so they began a new initiative to strengthen national capacities to manage drought
and water scarcity this region. This project is an extension of the United Nations
initiative and focuses on pre-impact and preparedness drought management planning
in the Middle East. 10 pilot countries from the Middle East are involved in the project
to provide critical information about the current drought management practices in
their individual countries. The project is broken up into two separate sections: Section
1 is the analysis, mapping and identification of critical gaps in pre-impact and preparedness
drought management in the Middle East, and Section 2 is a case study of drought management
in Israel. For Section 1, responses from the pilot country representatives and a thorough
literature review of successful drought management strategies in other arid regions
of the world were used to determine opportunities for capacity building and pre-impact
preparedness drought management strategies that could be used in the Middle East.
Based on the literature review and interview responses from the pilot countries, results
showed that Middle Eastern countries would benefit from adopting early warning systems,
microfinance and index-based insurance, and longer-term drought management strategies
that emphasized preparedness. For Section 2 of the project, the Israel case study,
lessons learned from Section 1 and CIHEAM guidelines were applied to Israel to develop
effective long-term, proactive drought management strategies for the country. CIHEAM
is an intergovernmental organization trusted by the United Nations and is a leader
in the fields of drought, agriculture and rural development. Some of the strategies
most suitable for Israel include wastewater treatment and reuse, crop diversification
and seawater and brackish water desalinization.
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