15 Jun 2021

Southern Africa Dialogue Platform: Live Blog & Recordings now available

The 1st ever Southern Africa Dialogue Platform  on Anticipatory Humanitarian Action took place from May 26 - 27, 2021. The first day provided a space for organizations to showcase their anticipatory work and explore synergies and opportunities for joint action, while the second day focused on the development of a joint roadmap for anticipatory actions in southern Africa. 

The highlights included a high level panel with executive representatives from IFRC, GRC/Anticipation Hub, FAO, WFP, the Regional Specialized meteorological centers from both Southern Africa (SAWS) and the South-West Indian Ocean (Météo France) and PIROI. All these organisations were advocating for anticipation as the new normal in the humanitarian system and pledged  their dedication towards enhanced collaboration in order to scale up robust AA in Southern Africa. 

In addition, there was a diverse range of actors present and topics discussed. This reinforces southern Africa’s role as an innovating region and their capacity to drive forward emerging themes within the anticipatory action community e.g anticipatory action in urban/fragile contexts, anticipatory action and gender based violence (GBV).

Around 210 participants joined the event from 34 countries. 

Key achievements

  • Successfully enabling Southern Africa as a sub-region to come together for the first time to exchange knowledge on anticipatory action and facilitate active co-design during the platform.

  • Developing the first steps of the inter-agency roadmap, guided by 4 pillars: 1) alignment of anticipatory actions 2) harmonization of triggers 3) advocacy, and 4) financing.

This illustration shows the main outcomes from the first Southern Africa Dialogue Platform
Illustration by Rebeka Ryvola

Check out the live blog

You can catch up on the highlights of each session through the ‘live blog’ on the Southern Africa Dialogue Platform event page.

Check out the live blog here.

Access the recordings

You can now access all the recordings of the sessions through the event platform under the tab ‘review’. For those already registered you should use the login code sent to you by email. For those not registered, you can still register, receive a code and use that to access the recordings. 

Access the recordings here

More information

For more information about the follow up activities on anticipatory action in the Southern Africa region - please contact Jurg Wibrink (IFRC) and Lena Huhn (GRC).