Start Network at HNPW

The humanitarian system has been focused on reactive short-term support after a crisis has hit, impacting the quality of the responses, which are often late, inadequate, and centralised. 

Start Network has decided to slowly shift away from this system by gearing towards early action for predictable crises and pushing power and resources to humanitarian actors closest to a crisis. Our member agencies and local hubs are proving that anticipatory and locally led action works and is often best for communities.

We are committed to sharing our knowledge, experience, and learning with the wider humanitarian system.

At the Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Week (HNPW), we are bringing diverse voices from our global network and key allies to challenge the humanitarian status quo.

Catch our hybrid sessions at #HNPW:

25 April 11:00 AM CET - Perspectives for a Changed System: What are the Barriers Preventing Local Access to Funding?

Within the humanitarian system, there is a growing momentum to support a more proactive and dignified approach to crises. The capacity of local actors to lead humanitarian action is increasingly being acknowledged, and there is growing recognition of their role in enabling early, rapid response to ensure more effective and sustainable interventions. 

Country-level, national NGO-led bodies, such as Start Network hubs, are platforms for change that demonstrate the power of local actors in delivering appropriate, timely, and relevant early action and response initiatives. Their engagement with the Start Fund and Start Ready initiatives has demonstrated that approaches to enabling locally led humanitarian action exist and are impactful.

This session aims to provide an improved understanding of the gaps that prevent local organisations from accessing the financing that would enable them to continue leading humanitarian action, and funding practices that have demonstrated approaches to meaningfully engage with local actors.

27 April 02:00 PM CET - From Saving to Protecting Lives - The Scope of Anticipatory Action and the Potential for Cross-sector work

In recent years, anticipatory humanitarian action has gained momentum. Our evidence suggests that the great majority (73%) of humanitarian response funding is going to crises that should be possible to forecast and act upon early, and only less than 2% of this funding is organised in advance – despite this being a much more effective way of tackling these crises, and although anticipatory action is not a silver bullet to solve all types of crises it can provide more efficient assistance. Start

Network’s anticipatory action funding mechanism, Start Ready, pre-positions funding for crises that happen with regular and predictable patterns of recurrence, like floods, droughts, and heatwaves.

This session will discuss how different actors in the humanitarian sector can work more efficiently together, using anticipatory action, to change the status quo of the humanitarian system. We will discuss the successes, challenges, and opportunities that various stakeholders can bring to the table to drive greater momentum and action toward this proactive way of working. 

 

We will be also sharing our insights in the following sessions led by our partner institutions:

• 25 April 11:00 AM CET - BBC Media Action Session, ...and Action! Media and communication as aid in crises.
• 26 April 09;00 AM CET - ODI Session Anticipatory action: the need to distinguish between simple crises and 'wicked crises'
• 26 April 02:00 PM CET - Anticipatory Action Task Force Session, A system-wide shift from reacting to anticipating humanitarian crises - integration of anticipatory action into the humanitarian programme cycle?