Enhancing Drought Risk Monitoring for Disaster Risk Reduction: Innovations in the Africa Multi-Hazard Early Warning and Action System (AMHEWAS)

We present a novel implementation of the impact-based drought monitoring and early warning component of the Africa Multi-Hazard Early Warning and Action System for Disaster Risk Reduction (AMHEWAS for DRR). AMHEWAS is a collaborative initiative led by the African Union Commission (AUC), in partnership with Regional Economic Communities, Member States, and with the technical and scientific expertise of UNDRR and CIMA Research Foundation. Its goal is to enhance Africa's resilience to natural hazards. The system adopts a comprehensive, multi-scale framework, integrating efforts at continental, regional, and national levels to strengthen early warning systems and advance disaster risk management strategies.

A key component of AMHEWAS is the Continental Watch (CW), an impact-based bulletin focused on rain, wind, flood, and drought hazards. The CW contains advisories on the levels of potential disaster impacts and is used by the African Union Commission to alert national authorities about potential threats. The CW consolidates data from automated monitoring and forecasting systems, providing decision-makers across Africa with timely, actionable information. This enables proactive interventions to reduce the potential impacts of disasters.

The drought bulletin, released to interested parties monthly, monitors drought hazard in near-real time at the continental scale. It uses openly available datasets to evaluate emerging drought conditions at different time scales, to ensure a diverse range of potential impacts is captured in the bulletin. For short-time drought evaluation (1-3 months), the Combined Drought Indicator (CDI) is used as hazard indicator, whereas for longer timescales, a 12-month Standardised Precipitation Index (SPI12) is used.

Hazard information from these indicators is paired with tailored layers for exposure and vulnerability to evaluate emerging potential drought impacts in various sectors. Results are presented monthly in the bulletin for the entire African continent and are aggregated at national and sub-national scales.