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The principle purpose of an early warning system is to collect an appropriate set of data and information regularly, in a consistent manner so as to provide a sense of trends and enable prediction of future status of the environment and events on a timely basis. This is done with a view to have populations at risk to be in a state of preparedness to prevent and respond to disasters. It enables them improve response, save lives and property, reduce damage to property and reduce human suffering from the extreme events and processes.

The concepts and science and technology for early warning systems have been substantially improved and refined over the last 30 years. Broad institutional arrangements and networks at various levels have equally developed tremendously during the same period. Even if not always perfect, the systems have globally given results in terms of indications and trends that have often attracted interventions but unfortunately not in many countries. States are being urged to address the issue as apart of their national risk management responsibility.

However, it requires states to have conviction, commitments, laws and other instruments like development strategies and programmes that include National Action Programmes to Combat Desertification (NAPs) to implement interventions that ideally should be driven by an existing early warning system (EWS).

There are instances in the IGAD sub-region where early warnings were issued but “ignored” and regretfully governments and responsible institutions were blamed for not having done enough before, during and after the disastrous events and processes like desertification, droughts, famines and floods. Redressing the situation proves to be even more costly.

This paper endeavors to demonstrate that although the science and systems have been developed in the IGAD sub-region where extreme events abound, responses have not always been adequate. It is proposed that the solutions may lie in formulating strong pro-EWS policies, legal and institutional frameworks to enable effective utilization of the available science and technological capabilities. This will save our environment, reduce disastrous processes and events and promote the culture of risk assessments and management by the state. One of the appropriate vehicles to promote this can be the NAPs.

The emphasis is on placement of early warning systems in a legal and institutional framework. This is with a view to influencing decision and policy making on risk management of our environment. Some of the legal areas that can be targeted for repeal to accommodate EWS are those of national statistical services, disaster management laws, and environmental management laws.

Land degradation is of great importance for sustainable livelihoods, hence the international community decided to develop a Convention that binds the countries to take measures to control land degradation process. Since, drought is a climatic feature that exacerbates land degradation, “mitigation of drought impact” was added to UNCCD.

Drought is a very common phenomenon all around the world especially in those countries located in the arid and semi arid areas. Like other countries in the arid zone, the Islamic Republic of Iran suffers from drought. Researches revealed that every 2.5 years, the country experiences drought with different severities. Apart from the impacts that drought imposes on natural resources and environment, huge economic losses impact the people i.e. the amount of losses caused by drought in just rainfed crops amounted to 6% of the GDP in 2000. Drought is also one of the causes of poverty and poverty causes land degradation. Thus, in NAP formulation, drought is one of the main subjects addressed.

In order to control the impacts of drought on land degradation, an integrated management model is needed. Since drought is a multi-faced phenomenon, the model should be quite comprehensive and cover hydrological, agricultural and socio-economic aspects.

In order to develop the strategies to manage drought, one should be aware of drought occurrence. In this regard, lots of indices such as PDSI and SPI have been developed and many countries are using such indices appropriate to their own circumstances to measure the drought severity and the area affected. As different sectors of the community and environment suffer from drought and since impacts are not always similar, each sector may also need its own indices to monitor drought impacts precisely.

Unfortunately, since drought is a slow and creeping disaster and since no clear and definite strategies to cope with drought have been developed, countries suffer a lot. Often, the approach is to go towards a fairly good crisis management system which is usually late and costly.

Some models to manage drought have been developed such as 3 phase management model (before, during and after drought), 10-step drought management model and recently a more comprehensive one has been developed for the disaster management. The latter consider both crisis management and risk management while the former models lack some components of this model.

Once, the model for each sector suffering from drought has been formulated, all stakeholders including managers and farmers can follow the strategies of the model leading to mitigate drought impacts and control land degradation.

The Program to Combat Desertification and Mitigate the Effects of Droughts in South America is being implemented at a regional scale. The general objective is to provide a sound basis for addressing dry land degradation and drought in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru, in accordance with the UNCCD principles. Other countries, such as, Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela have manifested their interest in participating in the Program and to share experiences and expertise among the countries in the Region. The Meso-America countries, are also willing to engage in the same approach of the Program, significantly expanding the basis for south-south and north-south cooperation. In Latin America, the vast majority of the 34 countries that have adhered to the UNCCD have elaborated their National Action Programmes (NAP’s) in accordance with their commitments towards the Convention. Currently, a number of them are engaged in the process to have their respective NAP’s fully implemented and guided by national policies targeted to control the continuous land degradation associated either with natural climatic variations or anthropogenic activities.

The main objective of the Convention is to secure the long-term commitment of its Parties to combat desertification and mitigate the effects of drought through effective action at all levels, with a view to contributing to the achievement of sustainable development in affected areas. The Convention calls on the affected countries to develop National Action Programs to Combat Desertification and Drought (NAPCD), within the framework of national development plans. These include strategies and priorities, paying special attention to the related socioeconomic factors, addressing the underlying causes of dry land degradation, promoting the participation of local populations particularly women and youth, and providing an enabling environment by issuing as necessary new laws and policies. Through the Program a set of socio-economic and environmental indicators were identified in all participating countries and a common base line of indicators was derived in order to establish a common ground for the simulation of future scenarios. This is particularly of importance regarding the climate indicators such as temperature, precipation and evaporation that constitute components of the aridity index used to delimit the arid, semi-arid and the dry sub-humid areas in the region. The global warming trend is likely to change the distribution patterns of such indicators and redefine the boundaries of the aforementioned areas. These changes, as predicted by future scenarios, should be taken into account in NAP implementation and be given due consideration in the formulation of public policies towards combating desertification.

Participants in the workshop met in the three working groups to discuss important issues concerning climate and land degradation and develop appropriate conclusions and recommendations under the following three major headings:

An International Workshop on Climate and Land Degradation organized by the World Meteorological Organization, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the Tanzania Meteorological Agency was held in Arusha, Tanzania, from 11 to 15 December 2006. The workshop was co-sponsored by the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The workshop focused on how climate induces and influences land degradation and what measures need to be taken to enhance the applications of weather and climate information to combat land degradation.