The Anticipation Hub publishes a new guide on how to facilitate After Action Reviews for anticipatory action
The Anticipation Hub has published the first edition of its facilitation guide for collective, multi-agency After Action Reviews. These events help partners to learn from how they planned for, coordinated ahead of and acted during a forecast hazard.
The Anticipation Hub publishes a new guide on how to facilitate After Action Reviews for anticipatory action
As anticipatory action continues to scale up, so does the number of activations that can be learnt from; in 2025, anticipatory action frameworks were activated 146 times across 54 countries. Each of these activations is an opportunity to see how the frameworks in place hold up during a real extreme event, and to use these lessons to strengthen them ahead of the next event.
The Anticipation Hub’s new facilitation guide is designed to show partners one way to achieve this, offering a practical, step-by-step approach to running an After Action Review (AAR) for anticipatory action.
Download the AAR facilitation guides (online and print versions)
What is an After Action Review?
An AAR is a structured process through which the actors involved in an activation reflect together on:
- what was planned
- what actually happened
- why it happened that way
- what should be done differently next time.
The guide focuses on how to run collective, multi-agency reviews, reflecting how anticipatory action is increasingly implemented. In a growing number of contexts, governments or coordinating bodies set the overall direction, while multiple partners implement actions ahead of a forecast hazard. Multi-agency AARs bring those partners into the same room, where questions around coordination, sequencing and the spaces between their mandates can be examined together.
However, honest reflection across organizations requires the right environment – and this needs to be created. This guide therefore treats the facilitation approach as central, setting out a process that is designed to be inclusive, equitable and engaging, and to create a safe space in which transparent reflection and joint problem-solving become possible. Over two to three days, split into up to thirty sessions, partners can work through the activation and emerge with concrete outputs, such as an action plan or advocacy messages to take into national and regional forums.
This is the first edition of the facilitation guide. As the Anticipation Hub supports more AARs, it will be revised and expanded in light of what was learned about facilitating these reviews, so do check back from time to time for the latest edition. Also, the structure, facilitation style and tips provided show only one way of facilitating an AAR and can be adapted based on the specific context, facilitator profile and audience preferences.
Practitioners interested in carrying out an AAR with the Anticipation Hub, or who have feedback on this edition, are invited to get in touch.
This facilitation guide was produced by the Anticipation Hub’s learning team, based on materials created by its learning and innovation manager for the first AARs, which the Anticipation Hub planned and implemented in 2025. This work was made possible thanks to financial support from the German Federal Foreign Office.
The guide is available for download in two formats: a single-page version optimized for reading on screen, and a double-page version formatted for printing.
Artwork: Beatriz Belo, Instituto NOW © Anticipation Hub