Communities in Senegal will receive around £330,000 ($400,500) from Start Network and its local partners in anticipation of the drought season in 2023.
Senegal’s 17 million population relies heavily on seasonal crops for their daily consumption and income. The spiking levels of climate risk through the years have gravely affected food security in many regions of the country.
“By utilising the latest technological tools, we have been able to develop working models to predict drought in different regions of Senegal. With this system in place, we are able to activate Start Ready and release pre-positioned funding to the most at-risk families so they can cover their basic needs.” Amadou Diallo, Start Network’s Disaster Risk Financing Regional Coordinator highlights.“This programme focuses on localised, smaller scale crises and the funding is specifically designed to enable at-risk populations to take action in advance of disaster striking.”
Local humanitarian actors and scientists within Senegal led close monitoring of rainfall levels over the last season and concluded that levels are not enough to adequately water crops which may lead to reduced harvests.
Start Network has significant experience of early action programming for drought in Senegal. In 2019/2020, Senegal faced severe drought, which was likely to impact food security levels across the country. Start Network members received an ARC Replica insurance payout of over 10M USD in order to assist the almost 335,000 people who were predicted to be affected by severe food insecurity.
This complemented an intervention led by the Government of Senegal who also received a large ARC insurance payout in the same year. The strong partnership between the Start Network members and the Government has been in place since 2018, providing a vital base for an effective Start Ready intervention ahead of the 2023 lean season.
Start Ready is Start Network’s financial mechanism which provides funding at scale for organisations to act in anticipation of predictable crises globally - including drought.