National Drought Plan of the Republic of Moldova.

Drought is one of the most common and devastating extreme climate events in Moldova. Moldova is located in a water insufficiency climate zone. The Government of Moldova has a strong commitment to enhance climate resiliency and reduce drought vulnerability. The endeavor to cope with climate risks and reduce drought vulnerability has been supported through several bilateral and multilateral climates risks mitigation projects. This Plan is an open structured document and has been designed in such a way that it can be further developed and updated to reflect changing conditions, new information, and an evolving leadership structure encompassing government agencies, stakeholders, and the general public to achieve the desired management goals and objectives on mitigation of drought impacts. It is contemplated that the plan has to be updated every six years. This Plan also contemplates the concept of “exceptional circumstances” to cover events of greatest severity that they would be considered beyond the scope of good drought risk assessment and management.
An imperative of the Plan is that human and economic capital will be directed towards the implementation of mitigation/adaptation strategies that are relevant, targeted and effective. The overall goal of the National Drought Plan (NDP) is to create a conducive environment and to develop a coordinated and consistent framework for integrated actions to reduce drought risk and to improve preparedness to drought based on an adaptive, resilience perspectives. The National Drought Plan integrates global obligations of the Republic of Moldova and ensures a high relevance to the policies and planning initiatives, capitalizing the previous country climate risks mitigation and adaptation planning efforts to boost sustainability in drought resiliency.
The Plan introduces the main institutions, their subordinated agencies, scientific and civil society organizations are involved in drought response and describes their main responsibilities. The NDP is also to serving as a compendium of comprehensive drought-related policy, biophysical and socio-economical information, identifying key responsibilities for information collection needed to establish a consistent basis for evaluating the drought severity to make informed decisions. The plan indicates that current regional climate may have a greater negative potential impact assuming a corresponding “risk shift” of the large environmental and development failures due to extreme droughts. The critical insight of the current National Drought Plan (NDP) is that drought and high level of variability in agricultural production is a normal part of a farmer’s operating process and should be managed as any other business risks.
High risk of drought hazard in a changing climate is aggravated by unsustainable agricultural practices and ineffective risk governance. The plan has established the national drought indicators system. The Plan has identified the priority mitigation activities and investments across the vulnerable sectors for implementation in the near to mid-term future.