Despite numerous development and humanitarian efforts in the past decades, large portions of Africa and Asia, especially drylands, remain highly vulnerable to drought, as illustrated by the recent experiences in India (2009), China (2010), the Horn of Africa (2011) and the Sahel (2012). A stocktaking exercise was undertaken under the auspices of the Africa-Asia Drought Risk Management Peer Assistance Network in 2011 with the objective to review the current institutional and programmatic landscape in the realm of drought risk management (DRM) in the two regions and mapped out some of the main DRM capacity gaps and gap-filling opportunities.

The exercise is based upon the consultations with key individuals in both continents, an online survey of some 400 practitioners working in drought-related fields and focused discussions at the First Africa-Asia Drought Adaptation Forum held in Bangkok, Thailand, in June 2011. It highlighted important similarities in DRM issues across Africa and Asia and identified priority areas to which the inter-regional south-south cooperation could add value.