New research highlights the role of anticipatory action in addressing climate crises in East Africa

A research partnership between Save the Children and the Jameel Observatory for Food Security Early Action has revealed key insights into protecting vulnerable communities from climate-related disasters.

The final phase of new research carried out between 2021 and 2024 focused on Kenya and Somaliland explored how ‘anticipatory action’ – acting in advance of a crisis – can help prevent extreme weather events from escalating into humanitarian disasters that impact livelihoods and children’s lives. During this period, both countries experienced one of the worst droughts in history, followed by extensive flooding, resulting in a severe and protracted food crisis.

Climate change, conflict and other challenges, including famine and drought, threaten millions of people with hunger and insecurity. Humanitarian actors are required to address immediate needs and risks, while development and climate actors look to longer term climate adaptation and resilience building. Innovative solutions, including early warning systems and anticipatory action, that link to wider systems strengthening are required to help stave off the worst effects for the most vulnerable people.

As these threats grow, populations are increasingly faced with multiple, prolonged crises, leaving little time to recover or plan ahead. In response, the report’s findings on the role of anticipatory action revealed several important lessons, including:

• Local actors need to be integrated: Local people can be the first to act but are not always well integrated into early warning, decision-making, and resource allocation systems.

• Early warning systems need to use new channels:  While improving, these are not always trusted or accessible by communities and alternative channels must be utilised.

• Alternative coping strategies are essential: Households had limited coping and income-generating options during crises, resulting in engaging in negative strategies to cope – many of which have detrimental impacts on children, such as pulling them from school.

• Protracted crises require wider adaptation: Anticipatory action has an important role to play, even in a protracted crisis, but cannot work in isolation of wider resilience-building efforts.  It is unlikely to be sufficient in mitigating the full impact, particularly when many people are affected and so must be embedded into a wider disaster management approach that seeks to monitor, mitigate, anticipate and respond to risk.

• A ‘Do No Harm’ approach was met: In Somaliland, despite flooding not unfolding as forecasted, households utilised anticipatory support to incorporate adaptation that can support in the long-term, such has as paying off debts. This demonstrates anticipatory action’s capacity to generate positive outcomes, even when crises do not unfold as predicted.

Laura Swift, senior food security and livelihoods technical advisor at Save the Children, said: “Many people around the globe are facing more frequent, complex, and overlapping crises, mostly due to climate change and conflict. The completion of our research has underscored the importance of planning ahead and working with local people to adapt early warning systems, building on the lessons learnt from crises in East Africa over the last few years. While there is still much more to learn we are hopeful that our findings will help scale up anticipatory action and emergency interventions in the face of an increasingly turbulent climate.”

Dr Guyo Malicha Roba, head of the Jameel Observatory for Food Security Early Action, said: “Early warning systems have become crucial, now more than ever. With vulnerable populations in East Africa at the frontline of the impact of climate shocks and other challenges, we hope the research findings will push policymakers to act sooner rather than later to adopt measures that will shield these communities in times of crisis.” 

Read the full reports here.