Building the Next-Generation Evidence Base for Anticipatory Action in Asia-Pacific

This policy brief is designed as a practical guide for national governments, intergovernmental institutions, and development and humanitarian partners seeking to understand, and strengthen, the real-world impact of anticipatory action in Asia-Pacific. Grounded in key regional strategies, including the Asia-Pacific Technical Working Group on Early Warnings and Anticipatory Action Roadmap (2024), the ASEAN Framework on Anticipatory Action in Disaster Management (2022), and the Path Forward of the Intergovernmental Organizations’ Cooperation on Anticipatory Action (2025), the brief connects regional vision with operational delivery.

Its development was informed by consultations with members of the Asia-Pacific Technical Working Group on Early Warnings and Anticipatory Action and further refined through discussions at the Asia-Pacific Dialogue Platform on Anticipatory Action, held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in November 2025, ensuring that the analysis and recommendations reflect regional experience, priorities and practice. 

Beyond mapping the evolving anticipatory action landscape across the Asia-Pacific region, the brief brings together the principal schools of thought shaping how impact is understood and measured. It explores three complementary lenses: cost–benefit analysis, which quantifies avoided losses and return on investment; socio-economic analysis, which captures food security, equity, and human well-being; and process learning, which examines how systems, coordination, and decision-making influence timely action on the ground.

Drawing on country experience from across the region, the brief identifies where further evidence and learning can add the greatest value. It argues that the next step is not simply to produce more evaluations, but to build more coherent, comparable and decision-focused evidence around what governments and communities need to know. It calls for stronger national evidence frameworks, greater harmonization of methods and indicators, more systematic after-action and longer-term learning, and evidence that can help turn successful anticipatory action into sustained policy,  financing and practice at scale.