Champions of Change: Leading Drought Resilience Across Southern Africa

Drought in Southern Africa is too often treated as a crisis to survive rather than a risk to manage. This collection features five senior practitioners, including disaster managers, water engineers, economists, and policy directors, whose national mandates place them at the center of that shift. Each is a member of the Drought Resilience Champions Initiative, financed through the Cooperation in International Waters in Africa (CIWA) Program, a World Bank multi-donor trust fund supporting transboundary water cooperation across Sub-Saharan Africa. Through regional peer exchange, technical training, and shared learning across borders, these champions are building the case, within their own institutions and beyond, for drought resilience anchored in governance, data, and proactive investment rather than crisis response.