The future of Anticipatory Action: Four challenges to reaching scale and sustainability
Author: Zoë Scott
Photo: Shutterstock / Chobi Wala
Zoë Scott reflects on the four key challenges for achieving greater scale and sustainability for anticipatory action based on two recent reports that build on learning from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) anticipatory action pilots in Bangladesh and Nepal.
The Centre for Disaster Protection recently concluded learning exercises on the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) Anticipatory Action (AA) pilots in Nepal and Bangladesh, as part of our process learning support to OCHA. The focus was on moving to greater scale and sustainability for AA in each country. Four key challenges arise from the studies, which involved rapid literature reviews and interviews with over 40 stakeholders. These challenges are relevant not just for CERF, but for other AA actors considering the difficult issue of how to move beyond pilots.
Map of OCHA-facilitated anticipatory action portfolio in 2023. Adapted from OCHA website.
1. Keep the final destination in mind: government leadership
The studies gave a very clear and consistent picture of what scaled and sustainable anticipatory action should look like across both countries: government leadership. This consensus was striking given that those interviewed were predominantly from humanitarian agencies, and AA has been a humanitarian-led agenda to date in both countries.
However, there is little strategic thinking or planning about how this might be achieved. There is also little recognition that the CERF AA model, which is inherently UN-centric[2], is going to need to be re-thought to facilitate a transition to full government ownership and leadership. In some CERF contexts, government leadership is a long-way off but this is not so in Bangladesh and Nepal, which both have functioning bureaucracies and where governments have demonstrated initial support for AA.
Passing the baton to government has considerable implications for CERF’s normal mode of operation, and it will be necessary to think through developing new relationships, capacities, alliances and a different operating model for AA, less focused on the priorities, capacities and processes of the international humanitarian system. This may require compromises and trade-offs as governments may have different priorities and risk appetites. For example, many stakeholders mentioned using social protection programmes to build government support, but noted that underlying systems are not yet strong enough to support effective emergency response. Similarly, governments are usually keen to cover multiple risks and more localised shocks than CERF’s single-hazard AA frameworks are designed to tackle, requiring a different technical approach.
2. Move from a purist to a pragmatic approach to Anticipatory Action
Some AA actors use a tight definition of AA as pre-agreed activities that are initiated (and completed) before the peak impact of forecast shock, with funding released based on scientific data. This ‘purist’ approach has often led to much discussion on complex technical matters such as setting thresholds and impact-based forecasting. However, in both Bangladesh and Nepal, there were strong calls to adopt a more ‘pragmatic’ approach to AA that can adapt to changing circumstances and incorporates human judgement, not only scientific data in decision-making.
CERF’s approach to AA builds in as much automaticity as possible, protecting against politicised decision-making and people’s tendency to ‘wait and see’. However, stakeholders across both countries are now keen for greater flexibility in the approach. They are concerned by the reliability of forecast data and models, but are eager to expand to cover multiple hazards, conscious that shocks are often highly localised, affected by unmodelled local conditions[1] and sometimes lead to compounding or cascading shocks.
CERF trialled a new approach in Nepal and Bangladesh in 2022, incorporating a ‘stop mechanism’ into the trigger. Once forecast data shows thresholds have been met, the Resident Coordinator’s Office (in conjunction with other engaged actors) confirms that activation should go ahead. This new approach of integrating understanding of the context and risk information has been very popular, at one stage averting an ‘false positive’ in Nepal, where thresholds were met but flooding quickly subsided, enabling the funding to be saved for a much bigger flood later on. Some actors are keen to see this approach extended to a ‘go mechanism’ – in effect empowering a specific set of individuals to collectively agree to override the trigger, based on credible risk information.
These discretionary elements to AA triggers divide opinion, with some supportive and others fearing that they are the ‘beginning of the end’ for AA’s distinction from other humanitarian response. However, considerable desire to extend coverage to more hazards and areas (where forecasting data is less reliable) and to appeal to governments is driving calls for more flexibility. Continuing in this direction will require development of ‘guardrails’ to ensure rules and restrictions are in place to avoid misuse.
3. Connect the dots…
AA sits conceptually in a ‘resilience-response’ continuum, between disaster preparedness and response. Ideally, AA would not be a stand-alone activity, but would dove-tail with preparatory and system-strengthening work, followed by appropriate response and recovery activities. However, AA is currently approached without connecting the dots to other actors, programmes, initiatives and response activities.
Early action as part of a resilience and response continuum. Source: REAP
CERF AA funding is strictly only for pre-agreed ‘readiness’ and ‘activation’ activities, such as pre-positioning and distribution of supplies. Wider preparedness activities have to be funded by the agencies themselves or from other donors. This reduces the likelihood of necessary foundational investments in preparedness, for example the development and maintenance of shared beneficiary databases, or long-term liaison with government agencies. With no funding in place for preparedness, and no-one having formal responsibility for ‘connecting the dots’ there is too high a risk that this simply does not happen, and AA continues to be rolled out as a separate endeavour.
To move to the next level of scale and sustainability, AA has to stop being an add-on, instead becoming embedded in wider processes and activities. This is true within humanitarian processes (for example the Humanitarian Programme Cycle) but also beyond, crucially linking with government, development and climate processes (in connection with social protection, disaster risk reduction or early warning). There is a limit to what CERF alone can do in this regard, given that it is an international funding mechanism, and it is currently unclear who at country level is responsible for docking with other actors and initiatives, what new organisational relationships are needed, or how any of this wider coordination will be funded. These issues need to be addressed however in order to reap the benefits of a collective AA approach.
4. Clarify the reality from the rhetoric
AA is often promoted as prior activities that reduce the impacts of a shock and as a cost-effective alternative to post-shock response. However, it is extremely difficult to complete distribution before a rapid-onset shock, such as the flooding covered by CERF AA in Bangladesh and Nepal, where there is only a short 3-5 day window to activate. In Nepal’s recent activation, contextual factors meant that the activities were delayed and took place approximately 2 weeks after the peak shock. This was still ‘forecast-based’ and faster than it would have been for a normal humanitarian response, and so is a very welcome achievement, but it was likely not before the peak impact of the shock. This suggests a more open conversation is needed about what is achievable in different contexts, for different types of shock. This could help to prioritise contexts for AA and would also shape the design of support packages.
Anticipatory Action timeline in Nepal. Adapted from OCHA. (2022) 'Anticipatory Action Nepal'. Pamphlet. OCHA.
In reality, most of the AA activities funded by CERF are the same as response activities: mainly cash transfers and relief commodities such as dignity or water treatment kits. Attention needs to be paid to the design of AA packages to ensure they are actually feasible in the time available; appropriate and meaningful for communities’ needs prior to a shock; that readiness activities have been properly considered; and that they fit with expected follow-on response support. Now is the time for serious reflection about what is possible, what re-design is necessary and what impacts can be realistically expected from a successful activation to ensure the reality matches the rhetoric.
CERF has been a noble ‘first mover’ in attempting to scale up AA, and the pilots have undoubtedly increased the amount of funding available for AA; improved global learning; raised the profile of AA nationally and internationally; provided an opportunity to ‘road test’ collective AA to identify the foundational investments that are required; and sped up support to thousands of people across several countries since 2020. But now that these ambitious steps have been taken, it is time to pause and rethink what bold adjustments need to be made to the approach, the in-country processes, the partners and their capacities, the strategic alliances and relationships, and the support that communities receive.
Find out more
For more detailed insights and recommendations on how anticipatory action can reach scale and sustainability see the Centre’s recent learning reports which take forward-looking perspectives on the progress made and challenges remaining in Bangladesh and Nepal respectively.
[1] For example, embankment breaches, collapsing flood defences and shifting sediment levels are not included in models of riverine flooding.
[2] CERF AA funding is allocated exclusively to UN agencies, who then distribute it according to pre-agreed plans, often in partnership with INGOs or local organisations. In Bangladesh and Nepal, the main recipient of AA CERF allocations is WFP, with smaller amounts allocated to UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women and FAO.