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Working group on multi risk & anticipatory action
Humanitarians and disaster risk practitioners are currently facing a reality of increasing and changing risks, with new emerging threats and overlapping shocks. Extreme weather events rarely occur in isolation, but rather interact or converge with other types of hazards. These interactions influence the vulnerability and exposure of populations to other hazards, highlighting the need for multi-risk approaches which consider managing risks collectively rather than in isolation.
There is a need and interest among the anticipatory action community, convened through the Anticipation Hub, to exchange information, experiences, and knowledge, learn, and lead the integration of compound and cascading risk in anticipatory action approaches. In light of this, we would like to start the Multirisk Working Group with the aim of being a driver of change within the anticipatory action community, preparing it to understand and be able to take actions on multirisks.
A type of multirisk interrelationship, a compound risk is understood as multiple hazardous events affecting the same geographical area at the same time, interacting with the vulnerabilities that arise from the socioeconomic, political, and environmental context in which people are rooted and affecting the way hydrometeorological hazards are experienced. Cascading hazard processes are described as initial hazards followed by a chain of interrelated hazards, and cascading impacts are described as the sequence of events set about by one event that triggers a series of other disruptions. Increasing in frequency and geographical occurrence given climate change and other drivers, compound and cascading events are an emerging field in the anticipatory action humanitarian space.
While anticipatory action has made great progress in acting ahead of disasters, based on available predictive information with pre-agreed funding, the approaches to date are often focused on single hazards. With the shift towards impact-based forecasting and the vision of Early Warnings for All (EW4ALL), there is an opportunity to strengthen the integration of multirisk approaches to improve humanitarian anticipation and response to impacts of multiple interrelated events. Examples of efforts to this end include the dynamic risk monitoring of START network, emerging interest among Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies for the anticipation of complex humanitarian crises relating to people movement in Central America, displacement anticipation by the Danish Refugee Council, and retrospective analyses of past compound events by the Climate Centre.
Working Group
Mission of the working group: to facilitate the transition from a single hazard focus to a multi-, compound, and cascading risk perspective in anticipatory analysis and action. The Working Group on Multi-Risk aims to bring together experts on multi-risk with the objective of supporting integration in anticipatory action. For more information, please look at the concept note!
Aims and objectives
The mission of the working group will be achieved by:
- Connecting and sharing
- Learning
- Convening joint analysis
- Building and providing guidance to the sector
Co-chairs
The working group is currently organized by Tesse de Boer and Diogo Simão Lemos. Please get in touch with them for more information on how to get involved: boer@climatecentre.org and diogosimao.lemos@acaps.org
Format
This will be an open group, promoting membership across various types of responders. We meet once every three months, along with small group sessions and technical deep dives. We encourage the interactive participation of all members (everyone is invited to intervene, ask questions, give presentations, or facilitate the meeting).
Membership
Membership includes organizations that are working on locally led anticipatory action and/or advocating for its better use, or have strong ambitions to do so. Read more in the working group’s terms of reference.