Women and girls are known to suffer disproportionately during crises and disasters. A recent report by CARE International found 10/11 top humanitarian donors and 5/6 major United Nations agencies to be unsatisfactory in their progress towards their commitments to target 15% of their humanitarian aid to gender equality programming.
We have helped to mitigate the damage of impending disasters and, in some cases, managed to stop crises from forming altogether as a result of well-timed, pre-emptive action. Through these experiences, we have built a strong body of evidence that points to the value of early interventions to save time, money, and lives.
In 2016, the Start Network launched the Start Fund Anticipation Window in Bonn. We set out to link Start Network members with forecasts of impending crises and to facilitate country-level collaborative risk analysis, to release funds before a disaster strikes. Twenty-five Start Network members have since led innovative anticipatory projects, in twenty-four crisis-prone countries.
This year’s harsh winter cold fronts created a potential humanitarian crisis in Mexico, especially in light of the country’s weak infrastructure and high rates of poverty. Start Network member, CADENA, submitted an alert to Start Fund in early November in anticipation of this crisis.
The Start Fund alerts responding to climate-related disasters are increasing year-on-year. Start Network’s anticipatory action provides NGOs with the coordination and funding to better respond to crises that are undoubtedly associated with climate change. An anticipatory response to predicted flooding in Sri Lanka was initiated in the second half of 2018 through Alert 282. It is 1 of 9 flood-related alerts that have been raised in this country in the past four years to the Start Fund.
The space of forecast-based and anticipatory action is predominantly made up of organisations acting in anticipation of natural disasters or famine. What makes Start Network stand out against other organisations is our ability to also act in anticipation of man-made or conflict-related crises. The way in which Start Network operates through its network of aid agencies enables us to tap into an established operational presence in these highly sensitive contexts, which ensures that information for anticipation programming is readily available and our interventions are highly contextualised.
We spoke to Dr Erica Thompson from the London School of Economics about her work with Start Network on anticipating crises.
Mongolia is unique. 30% of the population earn their livelihoods from herding livestock, leading a traditional nomadic life to enable their animals to access pasture throughout the year. Weather conditions can be extremely harsh, with long, stormy winters where temperatures can drop as low as -40C or -50C. Herders, and therefore the wider Mongolia economy are vulnerable to the impacts of extreme winter weather. Dry summers can mean livestock do not gain the weight needed to survive winter, combined with harsh conditions this can cause mass livestock mortality known as ‘dzud’.
Read how a consortium of Start Network members completed the first anticipation activation in the Philippines helping communities to 'Andam Lahar' or 'Prepare for Lahar.'
For nomadic herder families in the Mongolian grasslands, living in extreme conditions is the norm. But when it comes to Dzud, the Mongolian term for a bitterly cold winter weather phenomenon, the impact can be greater than many are able to prepare. Anticipating how changes in the weather and environment will impact their lives is key.
