By Hilaire Avril, Regional Information Officer, EU Humanitarian Aid. Cuba has been fighting one of the toughest droughts in a century for the past three years. Declining and erratic rainfall, increasingly long periods between rainy seasons and dry spells caused by the El Niño phenomenon, have affected more than 50% of the island’s territory. “The frequency and severity of droughts in the Caribbean region have been increasing steadily in the past years, and – like other hazards such as hurricanes; one needs to prepare for and address these recurrent events,” says Virginie André, who coordinates EU Humanitarian Aid programmes for the Caribbean. The situation has a direct impact on the water level of the dams – throughout the country dam levels are below 50% of capacity. Although a staggering 141 of Cuba’s 168 municipalities have been affected, Central and Eastern Cuba have been hit particularly hard. “More than 1 million…