Bangladesh – Impact of Anticipatory Action
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Bangladesh Impact of Anticipatory Action Striking before the floods to protect agricultural livelihoods Efficient humanitarian assistance requires anticipation. For FAO, this means harnessing risk information systems to act faster and avert acute hunger. QU Dongyu FAO Director-General Bangladesh Impact of Anticipatory Action Striking before the floods to protect agricultural livelihoods Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Dhaka, 2021 REQUIRED CITATION FAO. 2021. Bangladesh – Impact of Anticipatory Action. Striking before the floods to protect agricultural livelihoods. Dhaka. The designations employed and the presentation of material in this information product do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) concerning the legal or development status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. 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Photo cover: ©FAO Contents Anticipatory action in Bangladesh ..............................................1 Challenges for Bangladesh .........................................................4 Crisis timeline for the 2020 floods in Bangladesh ......................7 Triggers for anticipatory action ................................................10 Deciding how to intervene .........................................................13 Return on investment ...............................................................17 Impact stories .............................................................................20 What we learned ........................................................................23 References ..................................................................................30 Bangladesh | iii ©FAO Anticipatory The intensity and frequency of natural hazards and conflicts are increasing, and they are leaving in their wake an unprecedented level of humanitarian action in needs. The number of people displaced by conflict is the highest ever Bangladesh recorded, and millions more are poised to migrate out of necessity. Not surprisingly, the impact on local economies, people’s lives and their livelihoods has increased, too. In some of the worst-hit places, it can seem unrelenting. One crisis will follow another, every time stripping away at the hard-earned but limited assets of the poorest and most vulnerable. Recurrent crises are also depriving people of their self-reliance and dignity. Globally, expanding needs, competing priorities and limited resources call for new approaches to make humanitarian interventions as effective as possible. This includes new ways to ensure that the impacts of hazards are limited before they can grow into even more devastating and costly disasters. That is why the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has been a long-time advocate of anticipatory interventions and works closely with governments and partners in the development, humanitarian and scientific communities to anticipate crises before they reach their peak. By building country-specific anticipatory action systems, FAO and its partners are able to monitor key indicators that predict shocks and trigger actions once they exceed pre-defined thresholds that raise the alarm. That is when FAO’s Special Fund for Emergency and Rehabilitation Activities (SFERA) usually comes into play and through its Anticipatory Action Window makes funds available when signs point towards a looming crisis. Along the way, it draws on FAO’s greatest asset – its technical knowledge and expertise in supporting vulnerable farmers and rural livelihoods. In recent years, anticipatory action has drawn the attention of the wider humanitarian and development community, and of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in particular. Seeing the potential of anticipatory action as a way to link humanitarian and development objectives by protecting – rather than rebuilding – livelihoods, OCHA, through its Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), has set aside USD 140 million for anticipatory action pilot projects around the world between 2020 and 2021. The Bangladesh anticipatory action pilot for the 2020 monsoon floods is one of the first projects in this growing number of collaborative, multi-agency interventions. It is also the very first sudden-onset disaster in which FAO tested this type of protective action that was previously applied only in more gradually unfolding crises. Anticipatory actions are varied and flexible, but highly time-sensitive. They can range from cash transfers that help fishers store their gear ahead of a cyclone to veterinary care to keep a farmer’s livestock healthy Bangladesh | 1 ©FAO and productive throughout a drought. Anticipatory actions may build flood defences that protect crops against a severe rainy season, or provide agricultural inputs and technical support to increase food production ahead of potential food crises. They rely on a concrete forecast and pre-agreed early warning thresholds, and they need to be implemented before a hazard reaches its peak. Acting early means families may not have to take on debt, sell agricultural assets or take children out of school. It can also prevent them from cutting down on meals or reducing the quality of the food they eat. Moreover, anticipatory actions can help save limited aid budgets and protect years of hard-fought development gains that could otherwise be lost. This study1 documents the outcome of acting early to protect farming families in northwestern Bangladesh from impending floods. It outlines FAO’s contribution to a first-of-its-kind collaboration with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Bangladesh Red Crescent Society (BDRCS), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Food Programme (WFP). Specifically, it provides 1 Unless otherwise noted, the information presented in this study draws from the impact analysis conducted by FAO in August–September 2020 titled ‘Assessing the impact of anticipatory actions to protect agricultural assets in the face of floods, Bangladesh’ (forthcoming). Additional information was gleaned from the OCHA study ‘Collective Anticipatory Humanitarian Action for Monsoon Flooding – Interim Report’, conducted in November 2020 and published in January 2021. 2 | Impact of Anticipatory Action Anticipatory action is a evidence on how effective FAO’s anticipatory actions have been in core element of the new supporting vulnerable groups and highlights their perspectives on the humanitarian model that benefits of acting early. Follow-up studies are needed to explore the organizations need to full benefits of FAO’s interventions and to gain a more comprehensive adopt in order to effectively understanding of its cascading effect on resilience and well-being. protect and mitigate future climate risks. In the 2020 Bangladesh