Drought is an ever-present threat in South-East Asia, especially to the region’s poorest and most vulnerable people. Compared with other disasters, droughts are more predictable, yet policy responses still tend to be largely reactive. This Report argues, instead, for a more proactive approach along three policy tracks: reduce and prevent; prepare and respond; and restore and recover. Across all these activities, countries in South-East Asia can capitalize on each other’s experience and expertise through more extensive regional cooperation.

The severity of droughts during 2015-2020 exceeds anything recorded in the past two decades. To present a comparable analysis of drought across countries, the Report uses a widely-accepted indicator, called the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), to explore the occurrence of droughts across the region during 2015-2020, situate them in a longer historical context, and explore their climatic drivers. This is the first regionally standardized analysis performed for the ASEAN to inform policymaking.