Food and Agriculture Organization and Agricultural Droughts - Monitoring and Predicting Agricultural Drought: A Global Study - page 419

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are cultivable. The most serious challenge to agriculture is water scarcity
because the average annual rainfall is only 205 mm. Although the region
covers 14% of the world's surface, its water resources represent only 2%
of the total renewable water resources of the world. FAO has called on the
Near East governments to establish a drought watch and early warning
system and to support a recently launched Drought Information Network
for the Near East and the Mediterranean (http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/
OIS/PRESS NE/english/2002/3084-en.html (FAO, 2002)). The great
global challenge for the coming years will be how to produce more food
with less water. To highlight this challenge, FAO dedicated the year 2002
as the World Food Day with the theme “Water: Source of Food Security”
by bringing together government representatives and civil society orga-
nizations in FAO member countries to focus on solutions to the prob-
lem of water scarcity and its impact on food security. “The future em-
phasis must be directed towards increasing the efficiency of water man-
agement systems and increasing water productivity, getting more produc-
tion per drop, as well as to move seriously towards tapping new non-
conventional water resources to increase agricultural productivity,” FAO
Director-General Jacques Diouf told the Near East Agriculture Ministers
at the 26th FAO Regional Conference for the Near East (March 9-13,
2002; http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/OIS/PRESS NE/english/2002/3100-
en.html (FAO, 2002)).

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C onclusions
Since its establishment in 1945, FAO has contributed a lot to improve the
food security situation of rural people, especially in the developing coun-
tries. FAO has established a variety of programs for monitoring weather
conditions through satellite data and ground-based tools to provide timely
information for drought early warning in cases of impending food short-
ages. It can be said that FAO is fulfilling its purposes. The establishment of
the SDRN and GIEWS at FAO has been of great assistance to crop produc-
tion and agricultural drought monitoring through systematic collection,
analysis, and dissemination of food supply and production information in
the world.

[419

AC KNOWLEDGMENTS I extend my gratitude to Kennedy Masamvu, the SADC Re-
gi onal Remote Sensing Unit (RRSU), for granting me the time to prepare this chap-
ter and thanks to Rene Gommes, Michele Bernardi, and Jelle U. Hielkema for rec-
ommending me to write the chapter on behalf of FAO. The regional FAO office in
Harare provided some material to write the chapter. Special thanks are also due to
FAO Sub-Regional Representative Victoria Sekitoleko and to Mark McGuire.

Re ferences
Dorenbos, J., and A.H. Kassam. 1976. Agro-meteorological field stations. Irriga-
tion and Drainage Paper no. 27. Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome.