Decision Making for Responding to Drought - Ensuring they are Driven by Objective Assessments of Drought

This chapter reviews specific institutional mechanisms and management approaches followed in some of the developed and developing countries including India, Kenya, Australia and United States of America with the purpose of understanding the way the drought is declared and drought responses are made. It is evident from this review that the countries are at different levels of perfecting defining drought and institutional mechanisms for drought response and management. Disparities exist in terms of how drought is defined at different geographical levels and basis upon which drought response decisions are made. From this review, it is suggested that the countries need to strengthen in areas of establishing appropriate drought trigger mechanisms at national and subnational levels, establishing clear basis for decision making that is transparent and verifiable, strengthening drought early warning and monitoring systems that is aimed at multiple stakeholders engaged in drought risk reduction, strengthening supportive input supply systems including inputs such as seeds and loans that could help farmers to take advantage of reviving rainfall conditions within a cropping period and simplifying administrative and institutional procedures to reduce the time taken to take short-term drought response related decisions.