Clare Harris – HelpAge International
Environmental Risk Advisor (DRR, Climate Change and Resilience)
Msc Geophysical Hazards

Aim: Explore the application of seasonal forecasts to the humanitarian sector for pre-emptive response, with a focus on engaging the wider NGO community
Objective 1: Identify some of the key questions that need to be considered within a potential decision making framework
Objective 2: Explore the operational barriers in applying seasonal forecasts in the humanitarian sector, but also what the solutions to this may be.
Objective 3: In discussion suggest an operational mechanism that may facilitate humanitarian agencies including the wider NGO community to successfully respond to seasonal climatic forecasts through pre-emptive action
Focus groups and Interviews with operational staff across 7 Humanitarian NGO’s
2 Climate Scientists, 2 Intermediary staff, 2 Humanitarian Experts

Seasonal forecast depicting the potential hazard scenarios
RCOF

Potential Impact scenarios
What impacts do you care about, health?, agriculture?, food security?, water infrastructure??
What are the starting conditions?
What are the implications of the forecast on those starting conditions
Most-likely rainfall anomalies based on Forecast
Interpretation Tool analysis of the ICPAC
GHACOF30 Consensus forecast for March-May
2012
Crop rainfall tolerances household food access
October-December 2011 Rainfall as a percentage of normal (%) crop and market prices
Food stocks available
Food access – conflict
Vegetation Index February 20-29,
2012 compared to the previous year
Lots of analytical data needed in local detail across many thematic area of impact and accurate impact modelling – lots more uncertainty and error creeping in

Multi hazard environment – Climate and weather is just one factor
Earthquakes
HIV
Conflict
Fuel and food prices
Volcanic eruptions
Disease
Pests
Corruption
Landslides
Water pollution
Land degradation displacement
Lack of sanitation
Tsunami
Violence and abuse

if and how to respond
If to respond? External situation
• What’s the potential type and size of the impact and severity,
• what’s the uncertainty?
• Where do we get the information from?
• What are other agencies and governments are doing?
• What’s the existing in country governmental capacity?
Japan

Internal situation
- What funding is available, or could be available in the long term?
- Are we already present?
- Do we have capacity in country?
- Do our partners have capacity?
- Do we have human resource capacity?
- What is the security situation and can we manage it?
- Is there media attention and what’s the implication on our media and public image?
- Do we have political access and what is the political risk to existing programmes?
- What impact would there be diverting resources from exiting programmes?
- Is it within our strategic priorities?
- Is the impact in our strategic thematic area of work
- Who is responsible for deciding to respond?

How to respond?
- What is the potential impact and need identified, where are we (help to adapt, pre-planting ---- need for therapeutic feeding to start?? ?
- Where do we get the data from?
- Is the data credible?
- What’s the resolution of the data
- What’s the need in our specific thematic area or priority group?
- Does it fall within our strategic priority work and skills and experiences?
- What are the skills capacity and priority of the partner?
- What are the gaps ?
- What’s funding is available ?
- What is the appropriate kind of action for this level of certainty, where is the threshold ?
- What’s the plan if the certainty and impact analysis changes?

Lack of funding for analysis and pre-emptive action complexity and noise of
forecasts, analysis – too many actors and sources of information
Ability and willingness to
manage uncertainty – the need to see impact
Risk to the organisational image
and resource base in responding to something
Uncertain – potential to be wrong and loose credibility with the public, institutional donor's, communities and other agencies
Skill understanding and communication of seasonal forecasting
Analytical and operational
capacity - The lack of time and money available within the organisation to divert resources to something that might not happen and accountability for this when there is so much need in other areas
Organisational culture
• “risk adverse” due to
Precarious funding base
• Lack of capacity to learn
• Humanitarian/development divide – DRR and preemptive action sits in no mans land

Donor interest and funding mechanisms linked to forecasts and pre-emptive actions
Reduce the noise and create a decision making path,
Contingency planning and thresholds for actions
(Corridor in for seasonal climatic information)
Increased partnership for potential impact consensus building and stronger role of intermediaries they all point to the need for accountability in the use of uncertain seasonal forecast information for organisational action. It may be acceptable to be wrong and to have a false alarm, if there is a defensible decision
making process for the NGO – everyone reading off the same page and working in partnership
- this probably applies to all science and information subject to uncertainty

Proposed mechanism from the research
Replicate the consensus building idea of the RCOF, but at a national scale to bring together NGOs, farmers groups, intermediaries, NMHCs and governmental preparedness departments with a UN overview, to build a consensus both on the national scale forecast, and the likely impacts within key thematic areas related to humanitarian work.
-create specific levels of alert within each thematic area down to the district level which agencies can use to create their own thresholds for action
-relate the alert levels to analogous years, or scenarios (paint a picture)

• Puts NMHCs in a central responsible position, partnering with disaster management units, potentially increasing the impetus for their investment and capacity building
• Information on vulnerability in different thematic areas can be collected throughout the year, then overlaying the seasonal forecast for alert
• At a national level NMHCs could work to include community indictors for the season in consensus building, increasing buy in from communities (recent examples with Kenya Met)
• Reduces the noise right down to a singular credible mechanism at a national level that intermediaries, researchers, NGOs the private sector and other parties can engage with and work to improve
• Consensus building on impact can utilise both computer based modelling innovation but also more discussionary community based techniques for wider engagement

• Allows for NGOs to contribute data as well as be involved in the consensus building on the likely impact
• The NIOF reports can be tailored to different end users, techniques for the best communication and presentation techniques in this respect can be developed within the NOIF processes.
• Builds national capacity in disaster management and forecasting
• Provide a coordinated hub of learning
• Like any modelling, the NIOF would not be perfect immediately and would need time to improve, with continued support of the RCOF, but centralised engagement in this way is likely to ensure this happens as quickly as possible, as the seasonal forecasting improves so would the NIOF
• NIOF could act as a hub for looking at longer term climate change impacts as well.