Drought in Numbers report 2022 was released in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, during the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) on UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
Key highlights of Drought in Numbers report
- The report reveals that from 1970 to 2019, weather, climate and water hazards, accounted for 50 per cent of disasters and 45 per cent of disaster-related deaths, mostly in developing countries.
- Moreover, while droughts represented 15 per cent of natural disasters, they accounted for approximately 650,000 deaths throughout that period.
- And from 1998 to 2017, droughts triggered global economic losses of roughly $124 billion – a number and duration of which have risen 29 per cent since 2000.
- Meanwhile in 2022, more than 2.3 billion people are facing water stress and almost 160 million children are exposed to severe and prolonged droughts.
- Droughts have deep, widespread and underestimated impacts on societies, ecosystems, and economies, having impacted some 1.4 billion people between 2000 and 2019.
- The publication explains that 72 per cent of women and nine per cent of girls are burdened with collecting water, in some cases spending as much as 40 per cent of their calorific intake carrying it.
- In the United States, drought-induced crop failures and other economic losses have totalled $249 billion since 1980 alone, and over the past century, Asia was the continent with the highest total number of humans affected by drought.
- Over 1.4 billion people were affected by drought from 2000 to 2019. This makes drought the disaster affecting the second-highest number of people, after flooding. Africa suffered from drought more frequently than any other continent with 134 droughts, of which 70 occurred in East Africa
- The effect of severe droughts was estimated to have reduced India’s gross domestic product by 2-5% over the 10 years 1998 to 2017.
About UNCCD
- The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is the sole legally binding international agreement linking environment and development to sustainable land management.
- The Convention addresses specifically the arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, known as the drylands, where some of the most vulnerable ecosystems and peoples can be found.
- The UNCCD was adopted in Paris on 17 June 1994 and entered into force on 26 December 1996, 90 days after the 50th ratification was received.
- 197 countries and the European Union are Parties as at May 2021.
- The Conference of the Parties (COP), which is the Convention’s supreme governing body, held its first session in October 1997 in Rome, Italy.
- India became a signatory to UNCCD on 14th October 1994 and ratified it on 17th December 1996.
- The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is nodal Ministry of Convention.
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