Concept Note For Implementation of Community Based Early Warning Systems 1. Context Pakistan has witnessed a significant increase in the number and adverse impact of disasters in the past two decades. Hazards including floods, earthquakes, cyclones and storms, drought, avalanches, epidemics, landslides, glacial lake outburst floods and river erosion pose heavy risks to the country. Disasters affect all inhabitants without discrimination, and the most vulnerable groups are quite often the least able to cope. Women, Children, elderly and PWDs are among the most vulnerable population group, especially those who are living with multiple vulnerabilities. In the past, Lack of knowledge and skills accompanied with no significant early warning system contributed towards huge loss of lives and properties. Chitral, a land of mountains and glaciers, was also hit by worst floods during July – August 2015. These unprecedented floods spread devastation beyond proportions and most of the Chitral and Mastuj Subdivisions were almost destroyed. The major cause of floods was torrential rain and Glacial Lake Outburst devastation (GLOF); there are sub factors such as excessive deforestation and grazing that contributed heavily to mud slides. The 2015 floods not only brought physical damages but also economic devastation to the already economically compromised communities of Chitral. The communities in union councils of Yarkhun, Kosht, Ovir, Ayun, Lotkoh, Karimabad, Shoghore are extremely vulnerable due to fact that this area is prone to multiple natural hazards. Disasters besides effecting lives of people, take toll on economy of all inhabitants especially woman, disabled, and socially disadvantaged people. Due to the absence of proper early warning system the local communities were taken by surprise and accompanied with lack of response knowledge caused damages to life and properties in the area. Early warning is one of the major components of disaster risk reduction. DRR saves lives and reduces both material and economic losses from disaster 2. Background Early warning (EW) is the provision of timely and effective information, through the identified institutions, that allows individual exposed to hazard to take measures to minimize their risk and prepare for effective response. The need to establish community based early warning systems (EWS) that decrease personal and economic damages by informing the populous of disasters in advance has become a serious consideration in recent years. Until now, however, technical efforts in CBEWS have often resulted in systems that are not fully functional because of multiple reasons e.g inadequate human and technical capacities, insufficient cooperation among the agencies concerned, ignorance about the significance of CBEWS on the part of communities, and lack of experience-based know-how with no record of the historical or cultural background in areas of disaster prevention. For the reduction of vulnerabilities and risks to natural disasters, a CBEWS is proposed as the fundamental measure against floods, GLOFs and sediment disasters, including landslide and drought. In Pakistan early warning dissemination and information system is the responsibility of Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD). The PMD issues pertinent information on rainfall, snowfall and river flow from local, to provincial and to federal decision-makers and to general public. The current capacity allow PMD to predict weather for 2 days. At federal and provincial level, NDMA/PDMA issue warnings through TV channels and radio stations. At local level, early warning public messages are issued through tehsil, town and union council members/staff usually at the local mosques. At district level, agriculture and social welfare departments are the key implementing departments. At the community level, there is generally low disaster risk awareness in Pakistan especially among women and children. It is clear that there is no proper and designated early warning dissemination method in Chitral. 3. Major Objectives of the EWS Activity This activity is directly addressing the targets of the Sendai framework for action 2030 e.g. “Substantially increase the availability of and access to multihazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments to people by 2030”. The main objective of this activity is to transform at risk communities into prepared ‘disasterresilient’ communities. The establishment and development of CBEWS is quite diverse. Regional and local variations occur because not every organization has the same method to facilitate community-based systems and the contexts and starting are also different. An effective CBEWS comprises integration of the following 4 main components of EWS 1. Risk Knowledge/Assessment 2. Risk Monitoring 3. Response Capacity 4. Warning Communication Natural Hazards will always Challenge mankind. However, people-centered early warning systems can be a potent weapon in ensuring that Natural hazards do not turn into unmanageable disasters. ACTED is working to enhance the risk knowledge of the communities as 5 days CBDRM training are underway in 85 different locations. This training is designed to involve the communities in disaster risk management cycle as the major responders in all three phases e.g. before, during and after disaster. In addition to the training ACTED will support the trained communities by equipping them with disaster response tool kits. These kits shall be kept in the most vulnerable communities so that in times of disaster the communities have easy access to this ERT kit and assist the affected communities at the earliest. ACTED has also prepared different reports e.g. union council disaster management plans, risk and resilience plans etc. As Pakistan Meteorological department has the responsibility of monitoring all hydro-meteorological hazards and issue alerts/warnings to minimize the effects of natural disasters and DDMU has the responsibility of responding and dissiminating early warning messages. In this way by integrating the efforts of Pakistan Met, DDMU, ACTED and the communities in vulnerable areas it is proposed to establish an effective early warning system so that all the activities are done in time and save maximum number of people. The establishment of an appropriate community based Early Warning System (CBEWS) has to be supported by well-coordinated actions among all stakeholders, resulting in the reduction of human suffering and property damage from all future natural disasters. Therefore, the vision of the CBEWS Plan is to reduce the vulnerabilities and risks to natural disasters, by strengthening the early warning capabilities against natural disasters such as floods, heavy rainfall, heavy snowfall, landslides and by strengthening the institutional mechanisms to achieve the overall goal of the National Disaster Management Plan. With the help of an effective CBEWS the damages of disasters could be reduced by the following ways • Give education to community about early warning system. • Reliable institution to share day to day weather forecast with community • Accesses of community to keep themselves aware form weather forecast • Close coordination between government agencies and community • Preparation of contingency plan annually for monsoon rainfall • Community based organizations who take exercise how to disseminate and communicate early warning 4. Expected Outcome The main outcome of the envisaged community based early warning system is expected to contribute towards: • Awareness created among the community members through trainings. Especially children, women, elderly and persons with disabilities. • Losses of lives and properties minimized through sharing of knowledge and knowledge products. • Contribute towards achievement of Sendai Framework for DRR and UNISDR’s “Substantially increase the availability of and access to multihazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments to people by 2030”, Sendai Framework for DRR, the National Disaster Management Plan and DRR Policy of Government of Pakistan. • Early action early response to minimize the effects of disasters. 7. Implementation Arrangement ACTED will have two types of intervention in the CBEWS activity. 1. Structural Interventions include the following activities: a. Strengthening of existing capacities of Meteorological station i. Provision of communication service to automated weather station at Booni ii. Repair or overhauling of automated weather station at garamchashma iii. Instrument maintenance and renovation of automated weather station premises at PMD Balach iv. Installation of automatic rain gauge and temperature sensor in far flanked areas of Chitral where PMD has no access till now. 2. Non Structural Interventions include the following activities a. Provision of centralized early warning dissemination tool (App, Software, Laptop etc) i. Application, Laptop, Office equipments b. Provision of list of community gate keepers and VERT members, i. database of the community members, line departments etc for warning dissemination c. Orientation of local staff on Application d. Awareness workshop with all stakeholders on CBEWS design and workflow e. MoU with district Administration for sustainability of the CBEWS DDMU will provide the following support to ACTED to make the CBEWS successful for future 1. Line departments will share 4 kinds of short messages through the application a. Weekly, monthly, yearly and event based 2. Inside the premises of the station PMD will