UP – Unifying Partners Old and New to Ensure Warnings Save Lives
Early warning early action UP – Unifying Partners old and new to ensure warnings save lives 20th of June: 0900-1800 The UP Focus Day was designed to showcase where people-led early warnings are critical to ensuring early action. The REAP Partnership, in partnership with the UK Met Office, curated the content around Early Warning Early Action, clearly presenting where reference materials, guidance, technical standards, policies, and training materials are available for programme design and proposal writing content. SESSION 1: Understanding forecast uncertainty (led by UK Met Office) National Hydrological and Meteorological Services (NHMSs) are sometimes anxious and hesitant to issue forecasts/warnings when confidence is low for fear of criticism or the perception of being wrong. They hold off for greater confidence, but this risks the forecast/warning coming too late for some (the optimum?) anticipatory actions to take place. How do we overcome this and shift towards an action-centred approach for early warnings? This session explored why forecasts are uncertain, how we can use the uncertainty to help communicate potentially impactful scenarios and how users’ anticipatory actions can inform the communication of forecast uncertainty, and at what lead time. SESSION 2: Who are the people at the centre of EWS – using tradition and innovation to build resilience (led by Practical Action with support from CLEAR Global, CREWS, UCL, BBC Media Action, Start Network, Red Cross Climate Centre, UKMO) This interactive session delved into who are the people that we are putting at the centre of EWS, exploring their diverse needs, priorities, barriers, and the opportunities for including them in the design and operation to support effective early warning for all. Tools, techniques and strategies for building inclusive EWS were discussed, particularly as relates to putting the diversity of people at the centre when considering traditional and innovative approaches, dealing with uncertainty, operating in conflict settings, and setting up finance that works for everyone. SESSION 3: Early Warning and Early Action in Conflict research and applications (led by Red Cross Climate Centre) This session presented the latest research and practice on EWEA in conflict settings. Participants contributed to enhance our understanding of the challenges and opportunities for EWEA to flourish in complex context. SESSION 4: Innovative Finance to scale up early warning and early action. 4.1. Exploring Alternatives to Traditional Trigger-Based Funding Mechanisms (led by START Network) This session examined how to use anticipatory approaches and allocate funding in anticipation of hazards where statistical modelling is difficult or not as robust as needed for trigger-based financing (e.g., due to modelling difficulties as a result of the nature of the risk itself or due to lack of previous data that may make the preparation of a statistical model more complicated or unreliable). It demonstrated the value of dynamic, human decision making for anticipatory action, the flexibility it can provide, and how in particular contexts it can be more appropriate than automated triggers. 4.2. Financing Innovation across a People-centered Resilience Agenda (led by CREWS, supported by GSMA, BBC Media Action, World Bank) The session gathered input on innovative practices, how to systematize them and deploy them in future projects. The guiding questions were: (1) what is innovation in climate resilience and people-centered early warning systems projects? (2) How can innovation be replicated and scaled up? (3) What are the next steps to progress a workstream on innovation? 4.3. Where do we go from here? 2030 gaps and opportunities. (led by the REAP Secretariat) Throughout the day, and across sessions including from QR code channel and flipcharts/table notes in Google Docs/Slides/paper, the REAP team captured key themes and comments from participants. Through an interactive exercise, participants were then able to identify and prioritize activities for the EWEA sector in general and the REAP Partnership specifically: – 9 votes: Practitioner level: Connect media, governments and technical sectors to tackle challenges. – 8 votes: Vision: Define what “covered by” means – metrics. – 8 votes: Collaboration / sensemaking: Identify who is working in the space to boost focus rather than several actors trying to solve the same problem. – 6 votes: Enabling environment: Support non-traditional partnerships (e.g. public-private) – 5 votes : Sharing learnings : Broader cross-learning: share recommendations; learn from mistakes; honest, open, deep. – 5 votes: Collaborating: Enhance flows of information between all actors. – 4 votes: Collaborating: Step outside of organizational mandates. – 4 votes: Upskill community so that systems / management can be done locally.
Organized by: Risk Informed Early Action Partnership and the Met Office, UK and GFDRR/World Bank
