AlertNet: U.N. agencies are calling on governments at a high-level meeting this week to start reacting more quickly to warnings of drought and put in place national policies to prepare for longer and worse droughts.
"In the next decade to come, drought will continue escalating in severity, in occurrence and in duration," Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), told AlertNet from the conference in Geneva. "Preparedness and risk management cost-wise are...