Event Summary
Organization: Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre
Description
The interactive session fostered discussions by practitioners about what works and what does not work in Early Warning Systems, how such mechanisms can relate to existing disaster risk reduction and humanitarian systems and explored lessons learned in climate risk management.
As extreme events become more common and severe, case studies demonstrate that there are many humanitarian and risk reduction actions that can be triggered before a potential disaster strikes. This bridges the gap between long term risk reduction measures, short-term preparedness, and post-disaster humanitarian response. In several locations, impacts of the 2015 El Nino were effectively reduced due to early action.
This session explored success stories of various pilots that have triggered such early actions at community and district levels. Also referred as “forecast-based financing” pilots, these projects have disbursed funding for action based on a forecast and before a disaster. Practitioners from the World Food Programme, Bangladesh Red Crescent, Peruvian Red Cross, Mozambique Red Cross, Uganda Red Cross, Togo Red Cross, German Red Cross, and the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre interactively presented practical examples of forecasts triggering action before floods or droughts, reducing impacts on the potentially affected population.
