Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Change (BRACC)

Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Change strengthens anticipatory, absorptive and adaptive capacities, enabling communities (including different gender and age groups) to better cope with, manage and ‘bounce back better’ from shocks and stresses.

 

Project objective

The BRACC project aims at improving resilience of beneficiaries to weather and climate related shocks, responding to seasonal consumption needs, supporting the design of social safety nets, and generating evidence and knowledge to inform government policy.

The specific component of Anticipatory Action aims at strengthening operational system for Forecast based Financing.

Key facts

Start/end date     

01.12.2018 - 31.03.2023

Hazards covered    

Drought

Regions covered    

Four districts: Mangochi, Phalombe, Balaka and Chikwawa

Early action sectors     

Food security

Anticipatory Action Protocols/Plans in place    

Under development

Activations

1 per year

Key actors/implementing partners   

WFP | Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services (DCCMS) | Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA) | Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security | World Vision International | Find Your Feet | Plan International |

Anticipation in practice: Project description

Under the strategic shift to support the graduation pathways of the targeted households, FBF makes use of contingency finance and plans, along with forecasts and triggers to inform the delivery of assistance in a shock responsive manner, supporting the expansion of social protection systems in BRACC target areas, and to make necessary adjustments for anticipatory action across all programme activities. The FbF component within the BRACC project also aims at system strengthening and Operationalisation of FbF in Malawi.

 

Outcomes and lessons learnt

  • WFP is working with Columbia University of International Research Institute (IRI) in trialing a forecast based financing mechanism; IRI is therefore developing a maproom hosting different Forecast based financing tools, including hindcasts, forecasts and triggers (the link to the maproom is: iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/fbfmaproom/fbf/malawi ). For the 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 agricultural seasons, IRI presented the seasonal forecast lead times by month, which supported the development of actionable information disseminated to participants – complimented by the seasonal forecasts produced by Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services (DCCMS). The outlook for 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 agricultural seasons had no major concern on occurrence of prolonged dry spells within the seasons. However, it was noted that it was important to make observations as seasons unfolded and adjustments were made as required. One of the key activities was linking seasonal forecasts to agriculture advice, this information was disseminated through radio, text messaging and extension officers.

  • The Early Warning System Sub-Committee (EWS), under the Disaster Risk Management Committee (DRM) coordinated by DoDMA and chaired by DCCMS, revised the EWS ToRs; after revision, the EWS ToRs included early action work that covers FbF. The FbF Task Force Committee was formed to specifically coordinate FbF work in Malawi.

Contact

Dominic Nyirongo

E-mail: dominic.nyirongo@wfp.org

Implementing Organisation

Partner organizations

Supported by: