The State of Early Warning Systems - Reducing Disaster: Early Warning Systems for Climate Change - page 116

At a global scale, FAO's Global Information and Early Warning System on Food
and Agriculture (GIEWS) provides, on a regular basis, bulletins on global food crop
production and markets and situation reports on a regional and country-by-country
basis. GIEWS warns of imminent food crises, so that timely interventions can be
planned.
Many countries affected by severe droughts still lack early warning systems,
including countries in western and southern Africa and in eastern Africa (where
FEWS Net is available but no drought forecast is provided); in Europe (Spain, parts
of France, southern Sweden, and northern Poland); in Asia (India, parts of Thailand,
Turkey, Iran, Iraq, eastern China); in Latin America (areas of Ecuador, Colombia);
and in the south-eastern and western parts of Australia.

6.4.2.2 Desertifi cation

Currently no desertifi cation early warning system is fully implemented, given the
many associated challenges such as, for example, the absence of universally accepted
defi nitions and the diffi culty in identifying when desertifi cation actually begins.
The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertifi cation (UNCCD) is the main
player in this fi eld. It was signed by 110 governments in 1994 and is implemented
through National Action Programmes that lay out regional and local action plans
and strategies to combat desertifi cation. The UNCCD website provides regional and
country profi les together with a desertifi cation map. For each region, documenta-
tion, reports, and briefi ng notes on the implementation of action programs are avail-
able for each country.

6.4.2.3 Food Security

FAO's GIEWS and FEWSnet provide food security information. FEWSnet and the
Food Security and Nutrition Working Group (FSNWG) - a platform to promote the
disaster risk reduction agenda in the region - were instrumental in predicting the food
crisis in 2010-2011 in the East African Region in a timely manner but it did not lead
to early action. If the early warning information had been used, the humanitarian
crisis in the Horn of Africa could have been partially mitigated (Ververs 2011 ).

6.4.3 Impact of Climate Variability

As the impacts of climate change or variability become more prominent, especially in
some parts of the world, there is the need to harness the use of existing resources that
already collect key information on climate-related hazards such as, for example:

• Near real-time data on daily global ice concentration and snow coverage are
provided by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).