Authored by Alice Atieno Odingo, Caroline King-Okumu, Florence Kyoheirwe Muhanguzi, Ahmed Mohamoud, Binaya Pasakhala, Guyo Roba, Susan Varughese

Over the past decade, countries and communities pursuing low carbon and climate-resilient development pathways under the Paris Agreement have lived through some of the worst droughts in the majority of their populations’ living memory. In 2019, climate negotiators assembled in New Delhi, India for the Committee to Review Implementation of the UNCCD, highlighted capacity challenges in the necessary governance process to collectively address drought risks, particularly in countries experiencing serious droughts^[1]. They therefore prepared and published baseline reports tracking effects on the resilience of communities and ecosystems to droughts since 2000, and committed to continuously share resources and exchange capacities to improve these together (2022-27).

Annual budget policy statements for Kenya now systematically address the effects of droughts and other climatic extremes on the growth of the national economy. This year a supplementary mini-budget to cope with these effects and some additional unplanned expenditures also to address related security aspects was approved mid-year by the Government of Kenya. Furthermore, drought-affected countries in the Horn of Africa, including Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya have begun tagging climate-positive and negative expenditures^[2]. In preparation for the global observation of the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought 2026 in Kilifi, Kenya, we present a quick review of drought resilience building highlights from CLARE’s work across Africa and Asia. These ongoing adaptation achievements underline that resilience building is a continuous social learning process.

This overview builds on CLARE’s contributions to the annual celebrations of Desertification and Drought Day in 2024 and 2025, which highlighted how multiple CLARE projects are supporting drought resilience — such as by informing ongoing local, national and regional adaptation planning processes, and exploring new triggers for anticipatory action by public and private sectors. Further examples of how CLARE projects are working to address the urgent global challenge of drought through locally led adaptation are highlighted in the Global Center on Adaptation’s “2025 Stories of Resilience: Lessons from Local Adaptation Practice” and remainder of this blog.

Select highlights from CLARE’s research for impact on drought resilient development 

The past few years have driven home the urgent need to enable drought resilience. In 2024, the State of Karnataka, India was hit by its worst drought in 40 years, while the worst in 100 years hit Southern Africa. CLARE research teams across Africa and Asia have been working with communities to profile drought adaptation strategies, including rural and urban watershed management practices, Nature-based Solutions, migration strategies, and mobilizing additional investments with local NGOs working with Corporate Social Responsibility.

Agroecological drought has affected staple food production across several provinces of Nepal, and reduced snowmelt for groundwater recharge has deepened water scarcity both on the plains and in hilly areas such as Sindupalchok in Bagmati Province. The SUCCESS project team has studied the economics of community members’ migrations as adaptation, examining remittance income-generation amongst other effects in Sindupalchok, Nepal and across the wider South Asian region.

Some highlights from CLARE’s ongoing work on drought-resilient development so far in 2026 include a media brief on the resilience of women smallholders to droughts in the cattle corridor of Uganda and evidence of groundwater depletion, institutional fragmentation, and rising climate stress shaping household vulnerability in Dodoma, Tanzania. Research in Karnataka, India has shed light on urban wastewater management under drought conditions , questions about climate‑resilient agrarian futures, and reflections on mobility in adaptation to climate change as well as in-situ urban and rural adaptations to droughts. Insights relating to CSR and the establishment of devolved public funds for resilience have arisen through discussion of a cross-cutting thread on evidencing climate-resilient development.

Some of the CLARE projects strengthening resilience to droughts include BASIN, BIMA, CLARITY, CLAPs, HERCS, PALM-TREEs, PASSAGE, SUCCESS, and WOSFER. Together, CLARE evidence points to a common message across regions that drought resilience depends not only on technologies and infrastructure, but on strengthening local and multiscale  institutions, expanding equitable access to water, and supporting the adaptive capacities of women, smallholders, and urban poor communities.

Sharing evidence to guide global policy and financing processes 

In December 2024, researchers from the  CLARITY project teams in Nigeria and Niger fed insights into a global policy process at the UNCCD CoP16. By the end of that meeting, only one word of bracketed text still remained to conclude the negotiation on a new global framework to weigh in, as needed, across all levels of governance to  accelerate more proactive global cooperation on multiscale drought resilience. Progress toward an agreement should continue at CoP17. 

Global implementation of previous commitments to enable communities and ecosystems’ resilience to droughts was reviewed by the UNCCD Committee to Review the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC) in 2025 with input from CLARE on current available evidence of Climate-Resilient Development. Parties to the Convention and partners in various CLARE projects are now preparing  national reports to the Committee for submission in 2027 – see also CLARE investment already reported by the UK, alongside other national reports from CLARE countries across Africa and Asia on progress in enhancing communities’ and ecosystems’ resilience to droughts since 2000.

In preparation for this year’s UNCCD CRIC and CoP16, imperatives for enhanced governance to include rangeland mobility, institutions, knowledge, wealth and diversity in the discussion of drought resilience were discussed at the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) Africa 2026. The UNFCCC CoPs and Veredas Dialogue will then bring stakeholders together to address the alignment of finance to low carbon climate-resilient development including resilience to droughts.

Emerging conclusions

Even while climate events are becoming more intense and frequent, man-made economic drivers, institutional failures, and conflicts continue to accelerate deepening drought risks. The threats that droughts pose to national and global economies and development aspirations across Africa, Asia, and globally remain significant.

As the world becomes more interconnected, institutional failures to address a disastrous drought on one side of the planet can affect social stability, security, supply chains, and economies on the other. Building resilience and adapting to droughts and other climate risks is therefore an urgent priority globally — not only for drier regions (IPCC, 2023). CLARE confirms that adaptation solutions, knowledge, and evidence in the most vulnerable communities can be accelerated by partnerships sharing research and capacities.

Droughts and other climate hazards test the cohesion of civilisations and the resilience of their systems. Observation of the successes and failures of mutual cooperation for resilience-building is a social learning process that builds progressively year-on year. Sometimes, social conflicts, marginalization or the sheer magnitude of a drought event can overwhelm the collective will to pull together. In those cases, damages incurred can spiral through economies and society, leaving everyone the poorer for the loss. This makes the resilience gains achieved over the past decade in the Horn of Africa and elsewhere all the more important to acknowledge. It also makes CLARE and others’ investments in ongoing knowledge generation and sharing all the more valuable.

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^[1] See: Padma: African nations take UN to task Countries urge higher priority for drought research Nature 573, 319 (2019)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-61542168
https://www.arabnews.com/world/un-urges-nations-adopt-drought-policies

^[2] The ECONOGENESIS project has contributed to this process in Rwanda