The project's main objective is to strengthen the capacities of national planners, policy makers and stake-holders in water-scarce countries in transition settings in West Asia/North Africa to enhance their effectiveness in the formulation, implementation and monitoring of conflict-sensitive ex-ante (proactive) drought management strategies. These will contribute to building resilience and preparedness as well as reduce the risk, mitigate the severity, and speed up the response to severe droughts by reducing water scarcity and competition in addition to preventing water conflict. The project responds to a call for urgent action from the Rio + 20 Conference on Sustainable Development and the Outcome Document (The Future We Want) on taking effective measures to deal with drought and water scarcity as well as developing disaster risk reduction and community resilience. The project will employ means such as technology transfer, capacity building, regional support initiatives and extension training programmes to address these areas, the need for all of which is also asserted in the Outcome Document (The Future We Want). Further, this project will serve to forward the Secretary General's Five-Year Action Agenda as announced in January 2012, which highlights support for countries in transition as one of the top five priorities for the next five years. Moreover, it responds to decisions taken by the seventeenth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-17) that called for effective drought management considering social, economic and environmental aspects.