Aligning National Drought Plans with Global and National Policy Frameworks (FAO)

The new FAO report, “Aligning national drought plans with global and national policy frameworks: Methods, case studies and global lessons,” provides practical guidance for governments and practitioners on aligning national drought plans (NDPs) with existing policy, legal and institutional frameworks to enable the effective implementation of the NDPs.

It includes a multicriteria assessment framework to review the quality, readiness and internal coherence of drought plans, and a policy alignment approach that examines how different sectoral policies, institutional mandates, and coordination mechanisms recognize drought.

Applied across 12 country cases, the analysis highlights strengths in monitoring and capacity building, and identifies persisting gaps in governance, social inclusion, gender considerations, and cross-sectoral integration in areas such as health, energy and education.

Prepared under the Global Environment Facility (GEF) project “Enabling activities for implementing UNCCD COP15 decisions on drought”, the report concludes with tiered recommendations and operational pathways to strengthen policy coherence and support the transition from reactive drought response to proactive, risk-based drought management.