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A large-scale model for the messy work we need
A large-scale model for the messy work we need

Like galaxies colliding, anticipatory action is now  about learning to move within irreversible change.

For years, the work revolved around evidence: if only we had better data, clearer models, the right proof, then the world would act. But the real crisis has always been relational. Communities are flooded not because we don’t understand enough, but because the institutions that must act don’t trust one another enough. Funding chains move slower than the seasons they seek to anticipate.

True preparedness flourishes where relationships are slow to grow and quick to repair. Where communities, governments, and responders build trust strong enough to share risk and power. Where funding is not granted with strings attached, but rooted in accountability that flows many ways. Only then can people closest to crisis decide and act on their own terms.

Perhaps the Magellanic Clouds offer a good metaphor. Two galaxies bound by gravity, circling one another as they move toward eventual union. The process is messy  and protracted, but in that gravitational stew, new stars are born. So, too, with anticipatory action: creation through relationship.

Formerly called the Dialogue Platform on Forecast-based Financing, the Dialogue Platform on Anticipatory Humanitarian Action began as a bi-annual global workshop in 2015, organized by the German Red Cross in collaboration with the IFRC and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate, with funding from the German Federal Foreign Office. The Dialogue Platforms provide an interactive, engaging space for the anticipatory action community to share knowledge, best practices, and lessons learned to bring about a fundamental change within the humanitarian system: from reaction to anticipation. 

Participants from the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, governments, NGOs, academia and the private sector come together to discuss how to drive anticipatory action forward; increase the reach of this approach; improve its quality; engage new stakeholders in its implementation and development; and to determine the next steps as we collectively scale up anticipatory action across science, policy, and practice.

Between 2017 and 2025, the World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Start Network, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Welthungerhilfe (WHH), the Danish Refugee Council, and the Gargaar Relief and Development Organization (GREDO) joined as organizing partners. This is replicated at the annual Regional Dialogue Platforms on Anticipatory Humanitarian Action in the Americas, Africa, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), where regional and national partners also join the organizing committee for each event. 

For more details on the previous Global and Regional Dialogue Platforms, we invite you to visit this link.

About the Anticipation Hub

Building on the experience of the Dialogue Platform, commitments to scale up anticipatory action and the increased demand for more collaboration and guidance on the topic, the Anticipation Hub was launched in December 2020 as an initiative of the IFRC, the German Red Cross, and the Climate Centre to provide a more permanent space for learning and exchange beyond the annual Dialogue Platforms. Since its launch, the Hub has acted as the host and convenor of the Dialogue Platforms.

The mission of the Anticipation Hub is to facilitate knowledge exchange, learning, guidance and advocacy for practitioners, scientists and policymakers that supports them to jointly work with at-risk communities to collectively achieve anticipatory action. The Anticipation Hub aims to support practitioners, scientists, and policymakers, to do more anticipatory action, do it better and do it together, to jointly embed a culture of anticipatory action inside and beyond the humanitarian sector.

Aligned with the Anticipation Hub’s 2021-2024 Strategy, the Dialogue Platform embraces the following values:

  • Embracing a people-centred approach

  • Creating shared ownership and inclusiveness

  • Promoting and encouraging diversity

  • Bridging knowledge across science, policy, and practice

  • Stimulating creative and interactive exchange

  • Ensuring accountability