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The world today is facing unprecedented humanitarian needs and increasingly frequent large-scale natural disasters. Natural disasters are occurring almost five times more frequently than they were 40 years ago. Expanding global needs, competing priorities and scarce resources mean that new tools are needed to ensure smart, effective investments to help prevent the impact of disasters before they occur. Anticipating and mitigating crises has never been more important. FAO developed the Early Warning – Early Action (EWEA) programme to respond to this need.
Early action can enhance the resilience of at-risk populations, while protecting them from disasters and helping governments and humanitarian agencies respond more effectively. In addition, by leveraging early warning analysis to take action before a crisis occurs, the costs associated with disaster losses and emergency response can be significantly reduced.
In 2016-17, FAO piloted the Early Action Programme in a number of countries at high risk of natural disasters and food insecurity, including Paraguay, Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Madagascar, the Pacific Islands, Sudan and Mongolia. The Early Action Programme supports FAO member countries in interpreting forecast information and establishing early warning thresholds, such as below-average rainfall, unusual livestock movements and rising food prices. Once these thresholds are exceeded, FAO implements the Early Action Programme with the support of a rapid funding mechanism. Rather than raising funds after an emergency occurs, FAO has established a Special Fund for Emergency and Rehabilitation Activities, which allows country offices to access funds based on early warning triggers that indicate an impending disaster. Donors such as the Government of Belgium have contributed to the fund to support its efforts to prepare for crises, rather than just react to them.
Recently, Sudan and Madagascar have successfully initiated early action before crises erupted, thanks to early warning systems established through the project.
Sudan
Sudan is one of the driest countries in Africa, with 70 percent of the rural population relying on subsistence farming for their livelihoods, and rainfall can determine crop success.
The EWEA system in Sudan is designed to monitor drought and dry spell risks in Kassala and North Darfur. To strengthen drought early warning mechanisms at the national level, the EWEA system uses a range of climate, seasonal and vulnerability data.
In countries where early warning data is scarce, the success of early warning systems relies on collaboration with local and state institutions to fill knowledge gaps and build a holistic picture of the situation. FAO has established important links with state institutions such as the Kassala State Food Security Technical Secretariat (FSTS), which provide important details on local livestock status, livestock movements, animal and plant diseases and water availability. This information helps understand the local situation and compare past and present local market prices and rainfall forecasts to understand abnormal patterns and increasing vulnerability.
Since August 2017, EWEA monitoring has started to show worrying signs in Kassala State. During July, both indicators of abnormal livestock migration and a prolonged dry spell exceeded different thresholds. Monitoring results from September to October showed a further deterioration of the situation, including an increase in sorghum prices above the annual average, and in October the first early action was launched – a needs assessment to understand which resources would be affected and possible interventions to help pastoralists mitigate the effects of the dry spell.
By December 2017, when other early warning agencies were just beginning to sound the alarm about the situation, FAO had already begun its early action activities, mobilizing resources from the SFERA Early Action Fund to support 5,000 households and around 30,000 livestock. Beneficiary communities are receiving supplementary animal feed, animal health treatments and water management systems. Due to the drought, the lean season is expected to arrive three months earlier than usual. These early actions will be implemented before the peak of the drought to protect breeding and yearling livestock throughout the high-risk period.
Thanks to the EWEA system, FAO was one of the first agencies to sound the alarm about the situation in Kassala State and the first to intervene to protect livelihoods. As the situation worsened, rapid survey results revealed worrying conditions in Kassala State, which FAO shared with key partners such as the World Food Programme and the UN Food Security and Livelihoods Department, thereby promoting wider awareness and recognition of the situation.
Madagascar
Southern Madagascar has experienced very little rainfall since 2014. Over the past three years, drought has reduced crop production, with losses increasing and food insecurity alarming. The situation worsened in 2015 when the El Niño climate phenomenon reversed agricultural recovery efforts, with an estimated 95 percent of the harvest lost. In October 2016, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an early warning tool that measures levels of food insecurity, estimated that more than 1.2 million people in southern Madagascar were still in need of emergency assistance. Although ongoing relief efforts and weather conditions improved the situation in early 2017, the population remains vulnerable to these shocks.
In response to the impact of drought, FAO strengthened existing early warning and food security monitoring systems in Madagascar’s areas prone to natural disasters (such as the Integrated Monitoring System for Vulnerability and Food Security, or SISAV) and established a system to mitigate potential impacts. By strengthening existing food security systems and combining them with climate indicators that warn of new droughts and increased vulnerability, early action interventions are more comprehensive in safeguarding the agricultural livelihoods of affected communities.
By August 2017, the EWEA system had detected some worrying signals. Delayed, erratic and poorly distributed rainfall were the main reasons for another below-average harvest of staple crops. The 2017 growing and harvesting seasons failed to shake off the effects of cumulative drought. With food prices rising and food production falling, it became clear that vulnerable communities were struggling to even access staple foods. This led to projections that by early 2018, many households would not be able to meet their minimum food requirements, leading to very high rates of malnutrition and severe livelihood losses.
In response to these warnings, FAO is supporting 8 400 vulnerable and food-insecure households to help them quickly cope with the cumulative impacts of the prolonged drought by providing seeds, small-scale irrigation systems and technical support, including training in crop diversification and improved farming techniques. The supported households will be able to harvest two seasons in 2018, thereby improving food availability, incomes and livelihood resilience.
FAO is continuing to further develop and replicate early warning methodologies in other high-risk countries.
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