Announcement
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has released a report highlighting the increasing importance of Anticipatory Action (AA) in proactively meeting humanitarian needs. This study describes the IRC's innovative 'Follow the Forecast' approach and assesses the implementation of a pilot project in Guatemala during 2024.
Anticipatory action supports communities to prepare for and mitigate the impact of climate disasters by combining weather data and satellite technology to predict floods and trigger cash assistance for vulnerable households before a hazard occurs. The IRC has developed an agile approach that overcomes challenges to deploying and scaling anticipatory action, capitalizing on recent advances in open-source, long-range, seasonal forecast technology and leveraging its large geographical footprint in humanitarian contexts. Research shows that pre-disaster cash aid enables families to invest in long-term resilience, such as agriculture and livestock, helping to reduce economic losses and food insecurity.
Meg Galas, the IRC’s country director in Northern Central America:
“Climate change, along with protracted violence and economic instability, are worsening the humanitarian needs for millions of Central Americans. The IRC's “Follow the Forecast” (Anticipatory Action funding) ensured that families that could be directly affected by floods were able to prepare. Families decided how they would use the cash assistance—such as finding shelter or purchasing materials to repair and condition their roofs to withstand the rain. The AA teams identified the families most at-risk from flooding and with the greatest need for assistance. While the IRC’s action didn’t solve the climate crisis, it allowed families to stay safer.
“Millions of people in Guatemala and all of Northern Central America need humanitarian aid today to survive and recover from a multifactor crisis. As a sector, we need to provide such aid and find long-term solutions that allow them to rebuild their lives. This is a reminder of the need for immediate, comprehensive cooperation to build resilience and support adaptation, including early warning systems and anticipatory action, for the communities on the frontlines of natural hazards.”
The IRC’s report outlines concrete recommendations for potential adaptations of the “Follow the Forecast” approach within and beyond Guatemala. These recommendations can strengthen the overall humanitarian response system and practices overall.
Key components for effective anticipatory action responses:
- Community-informed, cash-first, partnership-based to support long-term resilience and coalition building for early action before a climate threat.
- Long-range forecasts and rapid contingency planning backed by open-source data and data validation.
- A combination of anticipatory cash & early warning messages which proved to be a powerful combination and should be further leveraged.
- Anticipatory Action linked with the broader disaster risk management cycle in addressing a particular climate risk and flexible and diverse funding mechanisms for a contextually appropriate, agile response.
Read the full report to find more lessons learned:
Along with the expansion of AA programs, the IRC is exploring new technologies, including AI, to enhance climate risk prediction and better protect at-risk communities around the world.
The IRC and the Trafigura Foundation have partnered to develop the 'Follow the Forecast' model, which leverages technologies—including AI and long-term weather forecasting—to detect high risks of flooding or drought, enabling timely humanitarian action. In 2024, the Trafigura Foundation also supported the IRC’s response through the Anticipatory Action Fund when severe flooding was predicted in Guatemala.
The IRC and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency - Sida has a longstanding humanitarian partnership. Under AA, Sida and IRC base the partnership on mutual operationalization of the Outcome Consensus of the AA commitment of the Grand Bargain. Sida further supports IRC through flexible humanitarian interventions as well as specific projects relating to methods development and capacity building within the humanitarian sector, in which the support for this report is included.