Innovative community engagement with Climate Information Services and early warning systems for flood resilience

Despite the constant interest, support, and innovation by donors and researchers to use climate information and digital technologies to improve the farming, livelihoods, and resilience of rural communities to shocks and stresses, the scale and impact of investment in those is still limited. We propose one of the reasons for this is because communities are not adequately involved in the development and design of that innovation and investment.

This session will explore the many constraints to effective impact and uptake of climate information, credible forecasts, early warning systems and digital technology solutions, and share working solutions from South Asia (Indonesia and Bangladesh) that illustrate ways communities and practitioners should be involved. The session will engage the participants to further contribute through questions and examples.

The B-READY pilot by Plan International in Indonesia is a working example of anticipatory finance in action; harnessing digital weather forecasting and risk modelling to facilitate digital cash transfers to vulnerable households before disaster strikes. Receiving financial resources pre-disaster gives households the autonomy to effectively protect and prepare themselves, reducing the impact of the event on their livelihoods and increasing resilience. In tandem with this technology, the project offers financial access and inclusion training and workshops for the local community to encourage preparedness and promote knowledge sharing regarding disaster risk finance.

The session will run from 8-10 am UK time/9-11 am CET/2-4 pm Jakarta time) on the 16th of June and include another case study from Practical Action in Bangladesh we all as breakout room discussions.

If interested, you can find the full programme for the CBA15 here and registration details here.