How do we know if anticipatory action works? - Building the evidence

Monitoring anticipatory action is important, but how do we know if anticipatory action works? Being sure that it does, Shirin Merola from WFP and Clemens Gross from the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre led the discussion on what can be done to generate the desired evidence on anticipatory action in Africa and guided the audience to look at three spheres when generating evidence:

• At the individual or household level: we look at lives that have been protected, physical and psychological well-being of affected communities, nutrition and food security, avoided asset losses to name a few.

• At the humanitarian system or institutional level: we assess the operational capacity of humanitarian organizations to act on forecasts and early warning, as well as the shift in humanitarian and disaster management culture policy towards anticipation.

• At forecasting level: Is there enough capacity on model availability and skill, on communication of model outputs and their usability by humanitarian and disaster management actors.

In setting the scene for the evidence landscape, there isn’t enough evidence based on anticipatory action and for that which is available, none is from Africa. There is therefore an urgent need to develop ideas and solutions to support the creation of the desired evidence of anticipatory action in Africa. The type of evidence that is needed should be clear, simple and non-resource demanding and provide the appropriate methodology for assessing the value of forecast-based action. It should also be impact-based, accurate in forecasting to trigger anticipatory action, provide added value to households, capture conflict-related evidence that is usually not available and should target the right people.

In terms of capacity building, there are several skills required to generate this evidence. Among them are think-tanks, leveraging agencies involved in anticipatory action, engaging local communities who should be at the centre of evidence building, involving governments and intergovernmental organisations like IGAD, SADAC and DRM that have capacity to build these skills as well as experts who have the right skill set. Overall, such required skills are in modelling within the institutions as well as at national level and must be strengthened in a coordinated manner.