Good evening, everyone, and thank you to [American Model United Nations] for inviting me to be your keynote speaker tonight. I’m honored to be here to talk about my work with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

My research focuses on how droughts affect people and ecosystems. “Drought” can mean different things depending on the context, but broadly, it is a precipitation deficit that is serious enough to disrupt normal ecosystem functioning and human activity.

What many people do not realize is that drought is the deadliest natural disaster worldwide. It causes more financial losses than any other hazard and ranks first in duration, geographic scale and long-term impacts. Every year, countries lose billions of dollars due to drought.

Drought also magnifies pre-existing inequalities. Worldwide, low-income households, children and women bear the brunt of its effects. As climate change intensifies, droughts are expected to become more frequent, severe and expansive.

Addressing drought requires international cooperation. Droughts do not respect borders, and no single nation, no matter how wealthy, can address them alone. That is why the work of the United Nations is so critical in this field.

For the UN report Drought Hotspots Around the World 2023–2025, I reviewed hundreds of scientific papers, government reports and news articles to identify where drought impacts were most severe in 2023 and 2024. I found that some of the most widespread, devastating droughts in recorded history occurred during this period. Regions hit hardest included Eastern and Southern Africa, the Mediterranean, Mexico, the Amazon Basin, Panama, and Southeast Asia. Many of these impacts have lasted through 2025.

Some of the most striking findings included extensive crop failures and livestock deaths that led to rising inflation, hunger and violence against women and girls. Across Southern and Eastern Africa, 90 million people faced acute food insecurity, and hundreds of thousands were at imminent risk of starvation. In fact, 43,000 deaths were attributed to Somalia’s drought in 2022. In Ethiopia, illegal child marriage rates doubled in the hardest-hit areas as families sought dowries or tried to reduce their financial burden. 

In Zimbabwe, school districts reported high dropout rates due to hunger, financial difficulty and lack of sanitation resources for girls. Zambia and Zimbabwe also experienced an energy crisis when the region’s largest hydroelectric plant dropped to 7 percent capacity in 2024. This caused blackouts that lasted up to 21 hours a day, and hospitals were unable to provide care even as cases of malnutrition and waterborne disease rose.

African countries saw perhaps the most shocking consequences of these droughts, but other continents were not spared from impact.

In Turkey, more than a thousand sinkholes formed in just one year as groundwater was depleted due to over pumping, which damaged infrastructure and permanently reduced aquifer storage.

The Amazon Basin experienced record-low river levels that killed fish and endangered dolphins. For hundreds of thousands of Amazonians, transportation was cut off entirely as many in the region rely on boats and rivers to access food, healthcare and clean water. These communities were left stranded and even women in labor were unable to reach hospitals.

These stories underscore a fundamental truth: drought has the greatest impact on those with the fewest resources. 

But it also affects all of us, no matter where we live.

Tourists in high-end areas Spain and Thailand vacationed under water restrictions and strained local supplies to the point of breaking. Drought-related restrictions at the Panama Canal disrupted global transportation and impacted the US soybean industry, UK grocery supplies, and global food prices. Dry soils in Indonesia led to rising sugar prices in the United States, and prolonged drought here in North America meant Mexico could not fulfill its obligations to a water-sharing treaty with Texas.

Water scarcity also accelerated the spread of disease: when people lose access to food, water or healthcare, HIV and other infections spread more quickly. Sexual violence, transactional sex and forced marriage all increase during drought and compound this issue. These outbreaks do not stay local; they spread globally.

What makes drought so uniquely devastating is that there is no substitute for water. While wealthy nations may turn to desalination, for instance, this remains expensive and energy-intensive, and it raises ecological concerns. Groundwater is a limited resource with its own drawbacks, as well. We need to rethink how we use water, both as individual nations and as a global community.

Across the world, water demand is quickly outpacing supply. Rapid urbanization, population growth, and unsustainable water use are pushing systems beyond their limits. On top of that, climate change is making many regions more arid. When rain does arrive, it often comes in intense bursts that cannot be absorbed by drought-hardened soils, causing flooding. Today’s strategies for managing water are no longer sufficient.

To build resilience to droughts, we need to invest in water-efficient infrastructure, restore ecosystems and reform policies related to water use and human rights. Turning to nature-based solutions, improving data collection, and fostering international cooperation will be crucial. 

If climate change continues unchecked, drought and other environmental crises will continue to worsen, threatening ecosystems, economies and human lives.

But, I want to end on a note of hope.

Seeing so many students dedicating their time to global issues gives me optimism. You are inheriting a world facing multiple, overlapping crises, including escalating climate change, but you also bring the fresh ideas and energy we need to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Conferences like this help you build the skills and perspectives needed to tackle these challenges head-on.

For those of you who may be interested in climate science or environmental policy, I encourage you to explore the UNCCD Youth Caucus, which is for people 35 and under who want to help shape global solutions to desertification and droughts.

In conclusion, global droughts since 2023 have revealed and intensified existing vulnerabilities putting tens of millions of people at risk. Without major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, rising temperatures will make droughts even more frequent and severe. 

But with sustainable innovation and international cooperation, we can build a future where communities are resilient and ecosystems are protected.

Thank you, and I wish you all the best of luck this week.

Have any questions? Email me at pguastello2@huskers.unl.edu.