The 2nd Stakeholder Workshop of the GlobeDrought project was organised at UNU-EHS on the 20th and 21st of November 2019, inviting experts from JRC-GDO, UNCCD, and WWF to meet with members of the GlobeDrought consortium. It provided participants with the opportunity to exchange on the state-of-the-art regarding the conceptualisation and assessment of drought hazards, vulnerabilities, and risks at the global level and how such information could be made available in a drought information system that is understandable and actionable to support the planning of drought risk reduction, coping, and adaptation strategies.

Workshop participants (Photo: UNU-EHS/Gonzales)

Workshop objectives:

  1. To introduce the objectives and methodological approach of the GlobeDrought project and to present findings and results of the project at the global level, thus stimulating discussions on how these results can be synthesised with stakeholders’ efforts to assess and monitor drought risk.
  2. To present the prototype version of the GlobeDrought information system and discuss possibilities of stakeholders using the system and/or integrating it (or specific components) with their existing systems.
  3. To identify entry points for possible future collaboration between project partners and stakeholders related to drought characterisation, monitoring, early warning, vulnerability, and risk assessment.

The workshop started with an introduction of the participants and the project background, followed by stakeholders’ presentations about their current status and needs. Stefan Siebert (University of Göttingen) gave a summary of the project’s outcomes so far, and Natalie Cornish (RSS GmbH) presented the prototype online portal currently hosting GlobeDrought’s results.

In a world café session, the participants split up into three groups (HAZARD, VULNERABILITY, and SYSTEM) to discuss issues related to these aspects in more detail. They examined the current status and identified gaps and challenges, as well as possibilities for future collaboration.

On the second day, after a presentation by Dr. Barron Joseph Orr (UNCCD Lead Scientist), the workshop participants continued their group discussions in more depth.

Find an article about the workshop on the GRoW website here.

GlobeDrought 2nd Stakeholder Workshop