Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority establishes a National Coordination Forum on Anticipatory Action

At Pakistan’s 1st National Dialogue Platform on Anticipatory Action in 2023, participants emphasized some of the priorities needed to scale up this approach in the country. These included the need for leadership, a coherent approach to designing and testing anticipatory action models and interventions, and documenting these and disseminating the information to the broader community of practice. The consensus was the need for a platform, led by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), to support the development of anticipatory action systems and the implementation of this approach.

The National Coordination Forum on Anticipatory Action aims to address this need by bringing together the diverse stakeholders working on this approach in Pakistan. These include national and provincial disaster management authorities, other relevant government departments responsible for hazard forecasting; partners working in early warnings, emergency preparedness and response, and the humanitarian and development sectors; and members of the academic community. Through the National Coordination Forum, they will drive the country’s policy development, technical capacity, multisectoral coordination and advocacy around anticipatory action.

To make the work more focused and to produce concrete outputs, the National Coordination Forum has five initial thematic sub-committees:

1. triggers, co-chaired by Welthungerhilfe (WHH)
2. anticipatory action, co-chaired by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
3. policy, financing and institutionalization, co-chaired by the World Food Programme (WFP)
4. learning and evidence, co-chaired by the Pakistan Red Crescent Society and the German Red Cross
5. coordination, co-chaired by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Collectively, these will contribute to creating an enabling environment for this approach. 

The first National Coordination Forum meeting

The National Coordination Forum’s first meeting, held in Islamabad in August 2024, was chaired by Lt. General Inam Haider Malik, the chairman of the NDMA. Participants included forum members – all provincial disaster management authorities, the Pakistan Meteorological Department, FAO, WFP, OCHA, the German Red Cross, the Pakistan Red Crescent Society, WHH and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit – as well as partner organizations such as the United Nation’s Children’s Fund, the National Humanitarian Network and Service Civil International.

“[The] country’s increased vulnerability to climate change [means that] remedial measures [are] needed to enhance climate and disaster resilience,” noted Lt. General Inam Haider Malik. “An anticipatory approach to disaster risk management is a critical pillar for increasing preparedness and response capabilities”. He also emphasized the need to learn from and design indigenous anticipatory action interventions, based on global and regional best practices and success stories.

Partner organizations outlined the work already done and ongoing, as well as the planned initiatives to support the implementation of the national anticipatory action agenda. The meeting concluded with a consensus among participants on the need to work in a coordinated, collaborative manner when rolling out interventions, as well as the importance of building on the work already being carried out in Pakistan.