Developing a forecasting model of droughts' impacts on food security for financial decision-making
Abstract
Mauritania is a Sahelian country subject to recurring droughts which affect Southern and South-Eastern regions where agriculture and pastoralism are dominant.
There is scarce and limited information to appraise the historical human and economic impact of droughts in Mauritania. Droughts mostly impact agricultural and livestock sectors, which are a significant part of income for households, increasing food insecurity in the most vulnerable ones. Since 2011, FSMS make a biannual assessment of the food insecurity in the country. On average in rural areas, around 28% households have been in chronic food insecurity. Important seasonal variations with peaks during hunger season are observed since 2011 driven by the quality of the rainy seasons. These climatic variations during a rainy season determines the food security patterns in the following hunger season. Droughts and dry spells during the rainy season significantly exacerbate seasonal variations. In 2012 over 25% of the population were found in a situation of food insecurity after the 2011 drought. Building on a catastrophe risk modeling approach to forecast local impacts of drought conditions for rural households, drought indices are convoluted with a georeferenced database of rural households classified by source of income and geographic livelihood zones and vulnerability relationships to climatic conditions with respect to household typologies. Based on this model, any set of climatic indices describing the precedent rainy season can be statistically simulated and then converted into food insecurity levels in rural areas during the hunger season to trigger governmental support to the most vulnerable according to well-established cash transfer mechanisms. Liquidity needs for assisting food insecure and targeted households in each season under the Government' permanent response plan can be statistically estimated. In order to adequately ex-ante financially plan for these liquidity needs, different sets of financial protection options are proposed by combining risk retention instruments and risk transfer instruments, as well as predictive yearly donor contributions. Optimized financial protection options are derived using a cost-benefit analysis to ensure efficiency when mobilizing resources, and financial sustainability through time.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMNH035..01I
- Keywords:
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- 1640 Remote sensing;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 1817 Extreme events;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 4333 Disaster risk analysis and assessment;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 6309 Decision making under uncertainty;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES