Disasters are a combination of natural factors (hazards) and human factors (vulnerabilities and coping capacity). Disaster risk reduction (DRR) programmes aim at increasing the coping capacities of the affected communities and reducing their vulnerability. In developing countries, the Commission's action focuses on supporting strategies and complementing existing strategies that enable local communities and institutions to better prepare for, mitigate and respond adequately to natural disasters by enhancing their capacities to cope and respond, thereby increasing resilience and reducing vulnerability. This support is a combination of community-based projects and projects at national or regional level that strive to increase resilience in the event of natural hazards. Community-based projects can be taken as an example to be scaled up by authorities and other communities. In the Horn of Africa, drought is a recurrent hazard that affects a large percentage of the population. The frequency and intensity of drought disasters have increased over the last decades, threatening to wipe away the developmental gains that have been made. The European Commission established DRR programmes in the Horn of Africa in 2006, with a specific focus on drought. These projects seek to build resilience in communities that are particularly vulnerable to drought, so they can cope better when rains fail. In the past, communities had traditional coping mechanisms, such as migration in search of resources, for dealing with recurrent drought. Today, population growth, resource-based conflict, lack of development, poor basic services, a trend towards a more sedentary lifestyle, as well as climate change make it harder to implement traditional coping strategies. So far, the Commission has invested €70 million in such programmes and the results are beginning to show.