China's Governance Structure on Drought Disaster in Rural Areas

Given that climate change is likely to exacerbate drought in certain parts of the world, a critical issue is how appropriate context-relevant drought policy can be crafted. This paper examines how China is developing policies to rural people to cope with drought disaster. Based on content analysis of relevant policies from governance perspective, the study concludes that the complex governance structure shows that (a) drought policies include general climate change policies, drought relief policies and adaptive policies; (b) there is a shift from hierarchical line management to co-management at national level; (c) policy incentives are mostly regulatory, economic, or both; (d) drought management paradigm is still disaster management rather than risk management; (e) with retreat of governmental organizations from local level, grass root organizations become more important in policy implementation; and (f) adopting market mechanisms and involving stakeholders are obvious trends in drought policies, but which are still in nascent stage.