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The Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention) provides a unique global legal and intergovernmental framework for climate change adaptation including flood and drought management in transboundary basins. In particular, flood and drought management is included under the programme area 4 on climate change adaptation of the Program of Work of the Water Convention for 2019-2021 (https://www.unece.org/index.php?id=51910). The Water Convention has been supporting countries and basins in adapting to climate change and managing flood and drought risk for 15 year through capacity building, exchange of experience, sharing knowledge, developing guidance and projects on the ground.

The authors would like to thank Ms. Louise Baker (Head of ERPA, UNCCD) for supporting the endeavour to analyse the national drought plans and for making the time to read and offer suggestions towards the completion of this analytical piece. Much appreciation also goes to the GM team (Hansol Park, Camilla Nordheim-Larsen, and Aasha Subedi) for making the information on the national droughts plans available for analysis. A big thank you also goes to Erkan Guler for the support in producing maps for the outcome of this work. To all the reviewers of this work, we also extend our gratitude to you for the help in finalizing the fine details of this analytical work

The COP (Dec 23/COP 14, Para 11a) invited Parties, international organizations and stakeholders to make submissions on: (i) Policy, implementation and institutional coordination frameworks and implementation measures for addressing drought under the convention; and (ii) Barriers, challenges and opportunities in preparing for, responding to and recovering from drought. The same decision (Para 9) also requested the secretariat to compile an inventory of existing drought-related tools beyond the Drought Toolbox and make this information available to Parties.

The GIZ sector project Soil Protection, Desertification, Sustainable Land Management is supporting the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) as German National Focal Point to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification Reduction (UNCCD). In a survey conducted in May 2020 the project gathered practical experience from German development cooperation on drought risk management and drought-related tools. This information shall feed into the recently created Intergovernmental Working Group on effective policy and implementation measures for addressing drought under the UNCCD (IWG)

Intergovernmental Working Group on Drought (IWG) is a working group set up to develop effective policy and implementation measures for addressing drought impacts in the context of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). It was established by governments during the 14th session of the Conference of Parties (COP 14) to the UNCCD. It will present its findings and recommendations for consideration by the Parties at the 15 session of the COP in Fall 2021.