Anticipatory action for livelihood protection and food security: Concepts and practices for a system-wide shift from reactive to preventive approaches to crises
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The term ‘anticipatory action’ refers to actions triggered before a crisis in order to mitigate the worst effects, or even avoid a crisis altogether. The timing of livelihood protection actions for an impending crisis is critical: decision dates do not work if they are based on the observed seriousness of the crisis, and if funding and action cannot be mobilised quickly. Rather, the timing should be determined by the livelihood calendar or timeline. Therefore, understanding windows of opportunity is as critical to the success of anticipatory action as determining the kinds of activity that can help reduce human suffering.
Notable progress has been made in the past years on anticipatory action. A number of organizations - such as the Food and Agiruclture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the START Network – have successfully worked with national counterparts for linking early warning to anticipatory action through pre-arranged financing, with encouraging results in terms of livelihood protection and crisis prevention. The approach is currently being scaled up in humanitarian settings through an inter-agency collaboration led by OCHA.
Now a system-wide change is needed to achieve the full benefits of anticipatory action for livelihood protection, moving towards a nexus approach with shared responsibility between government departments, development partners and humanitarian agencies.