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Monthly Risk Briefing: January 2020

The monthly risk briefing reports on new, emerging or deteriorating situations; therefore, ongoing events that are considered to be unchanged are not featured and risks that are beyond the scope and scale of the Start Fund are also not featured. It is collated by the Start Network Anticipation team using information from academia and research institutes, government departments, ACAPS, global risk indexes, risk information provided by Start Members and their partners, and the media. Key risks are shared and collated each month with FOREWARN input.

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Learning from Dhaka: Insights from grassroots innovations

The Disasters Emergencies Preparedness Programme (DEPP) Innovation Labs are composed of national and international humanitarian organisations under the Start Network and CDAC that support innovation emerging from communities in times of crisis. The Bangladesh DEPP lab is one of four labs recently supported by UK Aid for a two year period (2017-2019). This network of labs also extends to Jordan, the Philippines and Kenya. While each lab followed the core principles of lean innovation each adopted their own approach to applying this methodology.

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Monthly Risk Briefing: December 2019

The monthly risk briefing provides information on global weather, human and health events where members may consider using the Start Fund Anticipation process.

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FINANCIAL FLOWS MAPPING INTRODUCTION: THE POTENTIAL FOR A RISK FINANCE FACILITY FOR CIVIL SOCIETY

The Start Network is embarking on an ambitious design process for the Start Financing Facility (SFF); envisaged as the future financial infrastructure for the network. The long-term goal is for the SFF to incorporate existing Start Network funding mechanisms as well as new national and global instruments to provide a continuum of funding that will enable frontline humanitarian actors to better support communities at risk. This paper provides some initial quantification of the challenges with the humanitarian financing system that the SFF seeks to address. It highlights important gaps in the financing landscape, indicating that funding is reactive and not pre-planned, dominated by post-event response, and not sufficiently meeting the needs of people affected by under the radar crises. These gaps could be addressed by the Start Network, through the SFF and this analysis could eventually serve as a baseline against which to measure progress against the SFF once we enter the implementation phase.  

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MAPPING FINANCIAL FLOWS TO HUMANITARIAN CRISES

This paper provides a summary mapping of the disaster risk financing, humanitarian and wider funding streams that may be relevant to the implementation of an NGO risk financing facility (the Start Financing Facility). The vision for the Start Financing Facility is to provide a financial infrastructure to the Start Network which will allow members to deploy ‘donor money at scale, in timely, predictable and efficient ways’ to support them in protecting communities at risk (Start Network, 2019). This paper analyses how funding currently flows within the humanitarian sector, to what contexts and disasters, from what sources and to which actors, for what kind of sectoral interventions.  

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ANALYSING GAPS IN THE HUMANITARIAN AND DISASTER RISK FINANCING LANDSCAPE

A global mapping of humanitarian and disaster-related financing in the preceding paper has highlighted the range of flows received by countries experiencing crisis. Whilst this has demonstrated a varied landscape of financing mechanisms, further analysis has also drawn attention to the potential gaps in the current humanitarian system. The following paper explores such gaps between the global humanitarian caseload and existing financing flows along the dimensions of predictability, severity and timing, in order to understand the potential for a new risk finance facility for NGOs.

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ANALYSING THE START FUND CASELOAD

The Start Fund is a collective mechanism, allowing Start Network members to access rapid financing for crisis anticipation and response. Its focus is on underfunded small to medium scale crises, spikes in chronic humanitarian emergencies, and forecasts and early action / anticipation for impending crises (Start Network, 2019b). Between its inception in 2014 and mid-March 2019, the Start Fund was alerted 311 times. Out of these, 209 alerts were successfully activated, resulting in a total of US$ 65.6 million awarded for anticipation and response in 60 countries. Building on a global mapping of humanitarian and disaster-related financial flows, this paper analyses past Start Fund alerts and allocations considering the predictability, severity and timing of the Start Fund caseload.

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Putting People at the Centre of Early Action

A new report into Start Network's anticipation tool advises that going forward, enabling communities to act ahead of a potential disaster will require a focus on localisation, putting at-risk people at the centre of the process to mainstream of early humanitarian action.

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5. PREPAREDNESS RESOURCES

A new series of technical discussion papers by the Start Network, the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies explores how evolving disaster risk financing (DRF) approaches could be a game changer in acting earlier, quicker and more effectively to predictable humanitarian crises.   The papers are attempting to redefine how DRF meets humanitarian objectives. Building on the practical experience of the Start Network and IFRC the papers call for a move from the traditional DRF sovereign approach to a more human-impact driven approach to risk financing, identifying the financial and operational needs from the ground up; an ‘impact before instruments approach.’   Each paper explores the need for such a renewed approach whilst identifying some of the technical challenges and posing solutions to make disaster risk financing work most effectively in the humanitarian context.  The aim is to ignite dialogue and build collaboration around key technical challenges whilst highlighting some key solutions to unlock the potential of DRF for humanitarian action.

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6. MATRIX OF INSTRUMENTS AND FUNDS

A new series of technical discussion papers by the Start Network, the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies explores how evolving disaster risk financing (DRF) approaches could be a game changer in acting earlier, quicker and more effectively to predictable humanitarian crises.   The papers are attempting to redefine how DRF meets humanitarian objectives. Building on the practical experience of the Start Network and IFRC the papers call for a move from the traditional DRF sovereign approach to a more human-impact driven approach to risk financing, identifying the financial and operational needs from the ground up; an ‘impact before instruments approach.’   Each paper explores the need for such a renewed approach whilst identifying some of the technical challenges and posing solutions to make disaster risk financing work most effectively in the humanitarian context.  The aim is to ignite dialogue and build collaboration around key technical challenges whilst highlighting some key solutions to unlock the potential of DRF for humanitarian action.

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2. PEOPLE-CENTRED AND TRANSPARENT RISK ANALYTICS

A new series of technical discussion papers by the Start Network, the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies explores how evolving disaster risk financing (DRF) approaches could be a game changer in acting earlier, quicker and more effectively to predictable humanitarian crises.   The papers are attempting to redefine how DRF meets humanitarian objectives. Building on the practical experience of the Start Network and IFRC the papers call for a move from the traditional DRF sovereign approach to a more human-impact driven approach to risk financing, identifying the financial and operational needs from the ground up; an ‘impact before instruments approach.’   Each paper explores the need for such a renewed approach whilst identifying some of the technical challenges and posing solutions to make disaster risk financing work most effectively in the humanitarian context.  The aim is to ignite dialogue and build collaboration around key technical challenges whilst highlighting some key solutions to unlock the potential of DRF for humanitarian action.

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EARLY ACTION PLANNING, CONTINGENCY PLANNING AND COORDINATION

A new series of technical discussion papers by the Start Network, the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies explores how evolving disaster risk financing (DRF) approaches could be a game changer in acting earlier, quicker and more effectively to predictable humanitarian crises.   The papers are attempting to redefine how DRF meets humanitarian objectives. Building on the practical experience of the Start Network and IFRC the papers call for a move from the traditional DRF sovereign approach to a more human-impact driven approach to risk financing, identifying the financial and operational needs from the ground up; an ‘impact before instruments approach.’   Each paper explores the need for such a renewed approach whilst identifying some of the technical challenges and posing solutions to make disaster risk financing work most effectively in the humanitarian context.  The aim is to ignite dialogue and build collaboration around key technical challenges whilst highlighting some key solutions to unlock the potential of DRF for humanitarian action.