Biodiversité, eau et gestion des ressources naturelles
Managing Weather-Related Disasters in Southeast Asian Agriculture
Southeast Asia’s exposure to increasingly frequent and intense weather-related disasters
is a growing concern for agricultural producers of the region. This study reviews
policy approaches to droughts, floods and typhoons in Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand
and Viet Nam in an effort to identify good practices and strengthen the resilience
of the agricultural sector. The study assesses the risk exposure of this sector to
weather-related disasters and reviews risk management policies using an OECD policy
framework on the mitigation of droughts and floods in agriculture as a benchmark.
The analysis reveals several priority areas to strengthen the resilience of the agricultural
sectors in these four Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, including:
1) improving the prevention and mitigation components of disaster risk management
by aligning policy incentives and by integrating risk-reduction measures into infrastructure
planning and extension systems; 2) implementing and enforcing water allocation and
water use restriction instruments to steer farmers towards more efficient water use;
3) enhancing the co-ordination of government and partner institutions' activities
to enable a more timely response to disasters; and 4) improving the timely distribution
of inputs, equipment and social protection measures like disaster-linked cash transfers
to strengthen the capacity of farmers to recover from disasters.