Michael Brüntrup, © DIE
Droughts and drought resilience are gaining in importance and attention both nationally and internationally. Within the framework of Germany’s EU Council Presidency, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development – as a national focal point of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), – is organising a European strategy on the topic especially in preparation for the next UNCCD Conference of the Parties in 2021. DIE researcher Michael Brüntrup, the German contact scientist for the UNCCD and member of the international working group on drought, supported the BMZ by giving a keynote speech in the framework of the European Council’s Working Party on International Environment Issues – Desertification (WPIEI-DES). In line with the German sustainability strategy, he emphasised the importance of the issue for the EU countries themselves, for the channels of action and areas of intervention within bilateral development cooperation, and the need for greater harmonisation and cooperation at the international level. The aim must be to achieve a better understanding of the multiple impacts of (different types of) droughts (vulnerability analyses), to expand monitoring and early warning systems, and to give pro-active and preventive measures more weight, and to better link them to disaster intervention and emergency aid (multi-level resilience).