The 12th Global Dialogue Platform on Anticipatory Humanitarian Action will take place from 22 to 24 October 2024 in Berlin and online. This edition will focus on the theme ‘Mainstreaming anticipatory action: collaboration in complex contexts’.
Setting the scene
Anticipatory action is shifting the focus from response to protecting people ahead of shocks by utilizing forecast-based triggers, pre-agreed plans and financing, to ensure a more dignified, faster, and more cost-effective approach to disasters and crises. Over the past ten years anticipatory action has become a widely accepted approach to save lives and protect livelihoods, providing more dignified, effective, efficient humanitarian assistance.
The recently published report, Anticipatory Action in 2023: A Global Overview1, shows several encouraging trends when compared with the figures from 2022. For example, in 2023 12.8 million people (up from 3.6 million in 2022) were reached through anticipatory action with over 198 million US dollars (up from 138 million) across a growing range of hazards.
While anticipatory action has gained momentum and is consolidating as a practice, it is well recognized that pre-arranged (fuel) funding is not yet at the level to bring anticipatory action up to scale and unlock its full potential, particularly in the face of increasing humanitarian needs caused by the effects of climate change.
Increasingly, anticipatory action is being mainstreamed within national and regional structures and systems, evident in the rising number of government-led initiatives. At the same time, anticipatory action is also being mainstreamed in the humanitarian programme cycle2 linking readiness, anticipatory action and early response. Moreover, this approach is also expanding to reach people in complex contexts, for example, in fragile and conflict settings, urban areas and camps settings3, and areas affected by multiple and compounding risks. Despite these encouraging trends, anticipatory action is not yet being funded or implemented at a scale commensurate with the opportunity it presents.
Thematic focus areas
The 12th Global Dialogue Platform will bring together practitioners, researchers, policymakers, scientists and donors from around the world to explore these challenges and discuss the following themes:
1. Complex contexts, multiple hazards, and compounding risks
Conflict, climate, and economic shocks are driving millions of people to acute insecurity with conflict as the major driver, interlinked with underlying poverty, structural weaknesses, and other vulnerabilities.
How can anticipatory action be implemented in complex contexts characterised by evolving and rapidly changing risks? What ways of working are needed to reach those exposed to the double burden of conflict and weather-related disasters? How can local, national and international actors collaborate to implement anticipatory action in conflict settings, in highly dense urban, or in camp settings? How can the anticipatory action community assist people in the hard-to-reach areas, including those on the move due to displacement or forced migration? And how can the anticipatory action community address recurring disasters, especially in fragile and conflict-affected contexts?
2. Mainstreaming anticipatory action
To be scaled-up, anticipatory action must be integrated in local, national and regional disaster risk management frameworks, structures and systems. Increasingly, governments are not only key partners in the development and delivery of anticipatory action, but they are taking the lead in these endeavours. However, successful mainstreaming of anticipatory action requires effective collaboration among various actors, including local, national, regional and international entities, as well as governmental, humanitarian and development actors.
What can we learn from national and local governments who are scaling up anticipatory action and making it their own? How can different actors - local4, national and international, governmental, private sector, academia, research institute, humanitarian and development, most effectively collaborate to scale up and mainstream anticipatory action in government-led disaster risk management structures, national and regional frameworks, but also in the humanitarian programme cycle? How can the international system ensure coherence and synergies between proliferating approaches in the growing field of anticipatory actors, between humanitarian assistance and climate action? How can prearranged “fuel”5 and “build”6 funding be scaled up to enable greater uptake of anticipatory action?
How can the Anticipatory Action community engage with global initiatives such as Early Warnings for All, the Grand Bargain, the Global Shield, and the Loss and Damage Fund to ensure political and financial support for anticipatory action continues to grow? And how can anticipatory action be further mainstreamed into disaster risk management structures and systems, humanitarian, and development interventions?
These interconnected themes will be addressed from various angles, including, but not limited to:
- perspectives from local actors, practitioners, and people at risk of disasters
- collaboration beyond traditional models
- mainstreaming “build” and “fuel” funding for anticipatory action
- financing anticipatory action in complex settings and for compounding risks
- providing a creative space for collective learning, frank discussion, and collaboration
- generating evidence, sharing experiences and lessons learned
- sharing technical solutions, tools, and skills
innovation (technical, methodological, legislative, etc.)
Format
The Global Dialogue Platform is a hybrid event and will take place simultaneously in Berlin and online. Sessions include a variety of formats:
Plenaries: from high profile keynotes and panels to innovative performances and ceremonies, plenaries bring everyone together with inspirational content.
Workshops: these 2-hour interactive sessions are dynamic and hands-on, providing space for in-depth discussion, learning, knowledge exchange, or co-production of meaningful outputs.
Ignite: promoted under the slogan “Enlighten us, but make it quick” this is a presentation format where a presenter speaks slides advance automatically to support them. An Ignite presentation is exactly 5 minutes and contains exactly 20 slides. The slides advance automatically after each slide is displayed for 15 seconds.
Panels: these 1-hour sessions are a chance for Dialogue Platform participants to come together, both in-person and online, and learn about a new topic by hearing from experts, practitioners, and people affected by disaster impacts / those who anticipatory actions aim to support / address about different aspects of anticipatory action. All panels include time for questions and answers.
Exhibition: discover organizations, projects, tools and more through interactive exhibits, stalls, and poster presentations.
Simultaneous interpretation is available for the online audience in Arabic, French and Spanish (the language of the event is English).
Objectives
The Global Dialogue Platform will enable participants from around the world to:
- discover how anticipatory action frameworks are being developed for compounding risks and implemented in complex contexts
- learn about how anticipatory action is being mainstreamed into national disaster risk management systems as well as the humanitarian system / humanitarian and development programming
- identify opportunities for scaling up anticipatory action through funding, collaboration, learning and partnerships between government, humanitarian, development, research, academia and climate actors
- discover new tools and approaches to address challenges faced by practitioners, local actors, and people at risk of disasters
- discuss innovative approaches to foster better collaboration, partnerships, financing, and research to mainstream anticipatory action
Background
In 2015, the German Red Cross, the IFRC, the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and WFP, with support from the German Federal Foreign Office, initiated the first Global Dialogue Platform on Anticipatory Humanitarian Action.7 Since then, the event has become a regular platform for exchange and learning around anticipatory action, for practitioners, scientists and policymakers and experts drawn from the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations, governments, local actors, donors, academia, and the private sector.
The Global Dialogue Platform is hosted by the Anticipation Hub, a joint initiative of the German Red Cross, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. It is being organized in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), Start Network, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and Welthungerhilfe (WHH), with support from the German Federal Foreign Office.
References:
1Anticipatory Action in 2023, A Global Overview, Anticipation Hub, April 2024
2Somalia Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan, OCHA, January 2024
3The ICRC response to El Nino flooding in Somalia report, April 2024
4Briefing: The benefits and importance of locally led anticipatory action, Anticipation Hub, April 2024
5COP28 Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action, November 2023
6Getting Ahead of Disasters Charter, November 2023
7Fuel funding pays for supporting activities such as planning, updating beneficiaries’ registries, and the development of forecasts and triggers.
