G7 Commitment on scaling-up anticipatory action: another advocacy milestone for the anticipatory action community
The release of the G7 Famine Prevention and Humanitarian Crisis Compact on May 5th 2021, is a huge milestone in gaining increased political commitment from the G7 countries to scale-up anticipatory action. The G7 Members agree to avert the deterioration of acute hunger worldwide and curb the growth of humanitarian needs and support scaling up anticipatory action as a solution to do so. They recognise the compelling evidence that anticipatory action protects hard-won development gains and is more efficient and more dignified than traditional humanitarian response. The collaborative advocacy efforts of the anticipatory action community played an important role in this achievement.
What specific commitments did the G7 make to scale-up anticipatory action?
The G7 commit to addressing critical funding gaps by:
- Providing an initial $.1.5 billion of humanitarian and related resilience strengthening support to the three countries at risk of famine – $800 million to Yemen, $341 million to South Sudan and $382 million to Nigeria – and to disburse these funds as soon as possible.
- Providing an initial $7 billion in humanitarian assistance and related resilience strengthening support to the 42 countries with populations one step from catastrophe or famine (including the three at risk of famine), with further allocations to come in 2021.
The G7 commit to scaling up anticipatory action by:
- Increasing anticipatory action throughout the humanitarian system, including through their funding at the country level, and harness complementary finance and planning by drawing on climate and disaster risk finance and development funds
- Seeking to grow support to the Central Emergency Response Fund to enable it to more than double the number of anticipatory action frameworks it finances, and support expansion of this approach to the Country-Based Pooled Funds, to better address shocks in conflict
- Seeking to grow support to the Disaster Relief Emergency Fund and the Start Fund to ensure local, including women-led, organisations can access finance to act ahead of shocks
Initiatives including the Risk-informed Early Action Partnership, the Anticipatory Action Task Force and the Anticipation Hub, as well as the continued support from the German Government, played an important role in sharing evidence, facilitating dialogue, informing policy and continued advocacy with G7 members and wider organisations to realise this important milestone. With the enhanced financial commitments, these organisations are ready to translate it into anticipatory action on the ground.
Today, acting ahead of disasters is more important than ever and to scale up anticipatory action. We welcome recent commitments of the G7 and the recent COHAFA summary. But financing alone will not be enough.
We need to learn, improve, strengthen preparedness and plan locally to realize the full potential of the anticipation agenda. It is great to see membership of the Anticipation Hub increase in order to allow for a collective learning, more coordination and better partnerships – More. Better. Together.
What other advocacy milestones on anticipatory action were achieved recently?
Another significant advocacy milestone, strongly influenced by the collective efforts of the Anticipatory Action Task Force was achieved when the EU Member States Council working party on Humanitarian Aid and Food Aid (COHAFA) recognised their commitment and support for anticipatory action in their 2020 Presidential Summary on Anticipatory Humanitarian Action and specifically called on Member States to engage with the Anticipation Hub. There is consensus between COHAFA members that “anticipatory humanitarian action constitutes an important opportunity to act in advance of disasters and crises before their impact fully unfolds and to do so more efficiently and in a more dignified fashion”. They emphasised the importance of the anticipatory action financing mechanisms and acknowledged how DG ECHO's renewed Guidance Note on Disaster Preparedness approach strongly supports anticipatory action as a critical element of managing crises more efficiently and effectively.
This web story by the Climate Centre further expands on the significance of this guidance for anticipatory action.
What do these policy achievements mean for the Anticipation Hub and its users?
The Anticipation Hub with support from its 74+ partners is committed to act as the knowledge sharing and learning platform to transfer expertise, guidance, learning materials, evidence and tools between practitioners, scientists and policymakers to scale-up anticipatory action globally.
Five key policy asks were developed by the Anticipatory Action Task Force (AATF) as a result of their collective experience implementing anticipatory action initiatives and continued engagement with donors, governments and other actors globally and regionally. These policy asks have been used to influence and inform the above-mentioned achievements and can be accessed in a video (developed with support from the Anticipation Hub) and Policy Brief format to help other actors in their efforts to advocate scaling-up anticipatory action and integration into national policies. Access the materials here.
The continued financial support from the German Federal Foreign Office (and possibly others in the future) is crucial to sustain this knowledge sharing platform to nurture the community of actors supporting the scale-up of anticipatory action.