Drought is a global problem that has far-reaching impacts, especially on vulnerable populations in developing regions. This paper highlights the need for a Global Drought Early Warning System (GDEWS), the elements that constitute its underlying framework (GDEWF), and the recent progress made toward its development. Many countries lack drought monitoring systems, as well as the capacity to respond via appropriate political, institutional, and technological frameworks, and these have inhibited the development of integrated drought management plans or early warning systems. The GDEWS will provide a source of drought tools and products via the GDEWF for countries and regions to develop tailored drought early warning systems for their own users. A key goal of a GDEWS is to maximize the lead time for early warning, allowing drought managers and disaster coordinators more time to put mitigation measures in place to reduce the vulnerability to drought. To address this, the GDEWF will take both a top-down approach to provide global realtime drought monitoring and seasonal forecasting, and a bottom-up approach that builds upon existing national and regional systems to provide continental-to-global coverage. A number of challenges must be overcome, however, before a GDEWS can become a reality, including the lack of in situ measurement networks and modest seasonal forecast skill in many regions, and the lack of infrastructure to translate data into useable information. A set of international partners, through a series of recent workshops and evolving collaborations, has made progress toward meeting these challenges and developing a global system.

South Asia, is home to over one fifth of the world's population and is known to be the most disaster prone region in the world. The high rates of population growth, and natural resource degradation, with continuing high rates of poverty and food insecurity make South Asia one of the most vulnerable regions to the impacts of climate change. In general, past and present climate trends and variability in South Asia can be characterized by increasing air temperatures and there is an increasing trend in the intensity and frequency of extreme events in South Asia over the last century. Temperature projections for South Asia for the twenty-first century suggest a significant acceleration of warming over that observed in the twentieth century. Recent modelling experiments indicate that the warming would be significant in Himalayan Highlands including the Tibetan Plateau and arid regions of Asia. An increase in occurrence of extreme weather events including heat wave and intense precipitation events is projected in South

There seems to be little doubt that the global climate is changing, partly due to natural factors, and in part due to forcing by human activities. However, there are still uncertainties about the extent to which human activity (including agricultural activity) has contributed to the current changes and could influence the future climate. Inevitably, climate and its variability, including the ongoing current changes at various spatial and temporal scales, must impact on agricultural activities. A major challenge for the agricultural industry worldwide is to feed the world population that has been projected to increase by 50% from 6 billion in 2000 to 9 billion in 2050. Most of the increase occurred in the less developed countries, where the current food production is often low. But, although the proportion of hungry people in the world is far below that of 1970, FAO's current estimate of the number of undernourished people in the world in 2008 was 915 million, the highest over the past 30-40 years (FAO 2009). History suggests that we can be optimistic about achieving appropriate increases in food production. Nevertheless, agriculture must adapt to a changing, and probably more variable, climate and simultaneously reduce emissions and other human impacts, which contribute to global warming. We need to develop and implement farming systems that produce more, from lower inputs, and that do not predjudice the future (i.e. are more sustainable) than the current systems. A key focus of much current research around the world is to predict future changes in climate and to suggest how these changes will curtail current agricultural systems at individual locations. Thus, the Journal of Agricultural Science, Cambridge has

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