From reactive to proactive: the untapped potential for anticipatory action in small and medium NGOs

Last year, Cyclone Mocha threatened to devastate infrastructure and livelihoods in Bangladesh.

Prottyashi, a local NGO, responded proactively by launching a preventative outreach programme. It disseminated 4,500 dry food packages and critical information about cyclone safety, evacuation procedures and emergency contacts to the communities most likely to be affected. This ‘anticipatory action’ (AA) approach, coupled with effective coordination with local authorities, enabled Prottyashi to significantly reduce the crisis’ impact by empowering communities with knowledge and resources before the cyclone hit.

What distinguishes the Cyclone Mocha response, however, is that the AA was not implemented by one of the largest global players, but by a local NGO in partnership with its medium-sized international NGO partner, World Jewish Relief. The project is an excellent example of applying best practices to improve humanitarian operations on the ground.

What is anticipatory action?

AA is a crisis response method that uses triggers to activate pre-agreed finance plans and responses. The concept is becoming a buzzword among international humanitarian organisations like the START Network and World Food Programme. And for good reason—the START Network estimates that over half of crises are predictable, but only 5% of crisis funding is directed toward anticipation and preparedness. Since climate disasters like droughts, floods, and tropical storms are often predictable, AA offers an important opportunity to reduce the impacts of humanitarian disasters before they happen and improve future resiliency.

Our research team at the London School of Economics spent the past nine months interviewing and surveying AA experts and World Jewish Relief partners, and here we share our discoveries.

The following four recommendations suggest how small-to-medium-sized NGOs might begin transforming AA from a buzzword into a reliable strategy.

Use a range of triggers

Triggers are the cornerstone of AA.

‘Hard’ triggers rely on objective data to automatically launch response plans after crossing a warning threshold. ‘Soft’ triggers raise an alert when a threshold is crossed but leaves the response partially or wholly to the NGO’s discretion. Large-scale AA often relies on comprehensive hard triggers, but financial and infrastructural constraints mean smaller NGOs may be unable to access or manage reliable environmental data. Soft triggers can be easier to set up and monitor, require less upfront investment, and provide a degree of financial flexibility, rendering them more attractive.

Well-designed soft triggers could combine easily accessible weather data with expertise from a relevant internal team. Once established, an NGO can systematically monitor predictable disasters and prepare its responses at the trigger point rather than after the crisis has struck.

Employ local knowledge

NGOs must carefully select the information sources they use for their triggers. However, they need not only rely on large scientific datasets. Communities that have lived in particular places for multiple generations often have a strong understanding of disaster risks and mitigation. Context-specific knowledge held in local communities can supplement gaps in more formal early warning systems, make triggers more user-friendly, and incorporate the insights of those who best know the local environment. One NGO we interviewed in the Philippines, for example, has been successful in AA in part by merging Indigenous knowledges with scientific weather forecasting to create a holistic warning indication system.

A first step is to establish a community committee that monitors indicators and uses local knowledge to complement scientific data in the development of hard and soft triggers. This approach takes real steps towards implementing the localisation agenda and can save smaller NGOs the prohibitive costs of producing their own environmental data where existing data is absent or patchy.

Increase the capacity of all involved

AA data collection and trigger development involves many actors, including international and local NGOs, local communities, universities, local governments and meteorological offices. Not all of these organisations will be fully equipped at the onset to engage in AA, so an important step is to build the capacity of all involved.

Fortunately, help is available. The START Network, for instance, offers the FOREWARN programme, which connects members to hazard experts to provide guidance and training.

Establish effective administration

First, clear systems of financing are necessary to prevent bottlenecks. Two possible solutions are to apply to reliable AA grants or to allocate a certain proportion of the annual budget to AA to ensure availability. NGOs can implement phased funding that separates projects into smaller funding pockets filled as needed so that risk is distributed throughout the timeline of a response.

As with any humanitarian programme, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems are needed to keep AA programmes on track. NGOs can build on their existing M&E infrastructure and tailor it to AA by following guidance by the World Food Programme and the IFRC.

What does an AA process look like practically?

While the process will be different for different organisations, here are five steps to get the ball rolling.

Step 1: Assess feasibility and engage with stakeholders. Consider the available funding and donor appetite for expanding funding, and analyse staff capacity for responding to AA funding applications quickly. Assess which partners have capacity for monitoring early warning systems, and identify the regional and national networks and resources available for predicting and responding to disasters.

Step 2: Lay the foundations. Determine capacity constraints and identify possible means of improving knowledge on AA processes, weather forecast interpretation, M&E reporting expectations and AA funding application processes.

Step 3: Use existing resources. Identify where existing resources can be incorporated into programming, remembering that local knowledge is a valid and robust resource.

Step 4: Create a pre-agreed plan. Partner with local organisations to detail the interventions that will be initiated once trigger thresholds are crossed. Stagger risk response, and develop the funding mechanisms according to internal and partner needs.

Step 5: Solidify the design. After building capacity and identifying data sources, design the disaster framework. Record the threshold trigger points, whether triggers are hard or soft, and the proposed interventions at each trigger point. Continue to monitor and improve upon these elements.

Of course, smaller organizations may not have the existing staff or resources to immediately jump into fully-fledged AA. The good news is that resources already exist to help you get started. There are also numerous opportunities to collaborate and share expertise and information, such as by joining Anticipation Hub working groups or platforms like the START Network.