Defying Drought (D2)
Defying Drought
The learning and collaboration space of the WBG Academy Defying Drought Impact Program
Our Mission
The objective of the WBG Academy Defying Drought (D2) Impact Program is to reduce the impacts of drought through practical solutions in monitoring and forecasting, proactive water management, water conservation and agricultural water management, and financing drought mitigation and recovery, while fostering policy dialogue, innovation, and capacity building.
Representatives from Ministries of Economy and Finance, Environment, Water, Agriculture, private sector organizations, technical experts and academia will work together to:
- Gain a deep understanding of the macro-economic and cross-sectoral impacts of droughts in their countries.
- Learn from and adapt good practice measures from around the world to their own country specific contexts, starting with the development of an interactive and iterative drought monitor and early warning system/process.
- Learn how to develop targeted investment plans through public and private partnerships and stakeholder engagement.
Program Launched: September 29-30, 2025, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
Participating countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal. Practical solutions will be leveraged from Brazil, Eswatini, Morocco, and other countries.
Partners:
- International Institute for Water and Environmental Engineering (2iE),
- the Global Water Security and Sanitation Partnership (GWSP)
The Defying Drought Community of Practice
The peer‑learning and knowledge exchange space that connects people, experience, and practical solutions across the Defying Drought Impact Program.
What is it for?
The Defying Drought Community of Practice (CoP) is the collaborative learning and knowledge exchange space of the WBG Academy Defying Drought Impact Program.
While the Impact Program focuses on delivering solutions and strengthening country capacity, the CoP exists to:
- Connect practitioners, decision‑makers, researchers, and partners working on drought resilience across the Sahel and beyond
- Enable peer‑to‑peer learning, so countries and institutions can learn directly from one another’s experience
- Capture and organize practical knowledge generated through country implementation, events, and technical work
- Turn experience into reusable resources that can inform decisions, policy dialogue, and implementation over time
The CoP complements the Impact Program by ensuring that learning does not stop at events or reports, but continues through ongoing exchange, reflection, and collaboration.