When forecasts of severe flooding on Bangladesh’s Jamuna River came through in early July, UN aid officials did not just wait and hope for the best, as they might have done in the past. Drawing on $5.2 million released by the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), they started making cash payments of just over $50 to about 30,000 households expected to be in harm’s way. The money aimed to allow families to spend on whatever they believed would protect them most from the impending flood waters, from food and medicine to transport and clothing.
Thousands of farmers also were given sealable drums in which to safely store their seeds and farming tools, as well as feed for their animals at evacuation centres. About 15,000 women, girls and transgender people were provided with kits to support their health, including flash-cards with COVID-19 precautionary measures and helpline numbers to report violence and receive advice.
“Acting early is cheaper, more effective and more humane,” UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told an event last week on a push to provide aid ahead of disasters, which has garnered growing interest and funding from governments in the last couple of years.
Such a shift away from simply responding after a disaster occurs — which is far more common and costly — could help fraying aid budgets go further and assist more people as climate change fuels more frequent and damaging disasters globally.
The allocation of money before the floods hit in Bangladesh, affecting more than 5 million people, was the first time the CERF had been used for this kind of “forecast-based financing” — but is unlikely to be the last.
“There are very few problems humanitarian organisations deal with that you don’t get some notice of,” except for earthquakes, when alerts come only seconds ahead, Lowcock said. For most weather and climate threats that can cause humanitarian disasters, including droughts, storms and floods, modern forecasting systems can now give advance warning of at least a few days or weeks in many parts of the world. But simply having a forecast in hand at a national meteorological office is not enough, unless government officials and others can alert citizens and keep them safe.
Megan Rowling
— Thomson Reuters Foundation
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