Davide Zappa of ECHO states that “everything that we discuss is much more complicated in practice, rather than from a policy point of view and we are all aware of the complexity of working in situations where pre-existing vulnerability, needs, risks*future risks all merge together. Many of you face every day the reality of protracted and recurrent crisis.” For him the take away message is anticipatory actions is “about combination, about partnerships, about different elements working together.” He says: “We should look throughout the different steps of anticipatory action - like setting triggers, planning, arranging financing - that are required and ensure that different instruments and tools are coordinated and within a clear logical line, we need all these parts to work together.”

Hilla Wessel

Davide Zappa from ECHO’s Regional Office in Bangkok introduced the donor perspective on anticipatory action. Emphasizing that humanitarian funding cannot keep pace with the current and upcoming humanitarian challenges, more anticipatory action is needed, also in ECHO’s work, in order to prepare for and act ahead of a shock. This coincides with the continued need for traditional response. Davide Zappa reported on some early evidence from field operations in flood-prone regions in Northern Bangladesh. Here, earlier warning and preparedness resulted in better protection of assets and enabled people to seek shelter as well as some early timely harvesting. He furthermore stressed the need to apply and arrange the various tools of anticipatory action that are available today in a logic sequence.

Hilla Wessel