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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.

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

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.

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.

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.  

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.   

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.

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.

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.

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.