Many of the world’s disasters are foreseeable, and the science used to forecast them is increasingly reliable, enabling actors to put in place the actions and financing required to act before a disaster hits. Anticipatory action approaches are now being implemented in over 60 countries by the Red Cross Red Crescent (RCRC) network, UN and NGOs, with growing evidence, investment and political commitment for scaling up and mainstreaming into national Disaster Risk Management systems. 

The anticipatory action community is steadily growing, with over 93 partners of the Anticipation Hub who are facilitating knowledge exchange learning and advocacy. To advance learning and exchange, the Anticipation Hub continues to find innovative and creative ways to promote the anticipatory action concept, including through serious games, art, cartoon-infused sessions, and more.

The Anticipation Dance is an innovative, intensely interactive and participatory approach for raising awareness about the value of linking early warnings with early action for Disaster Risk Reduction. The Anticipation Dance was developed in collaboration with professional choreographers, musicians, dancers, anticipatory action experts, and other partners.

During this Ignite Stage performance, Anticipation Hub partners will dance along to the Anticipation Dance, inviting the audience to join in. The experience will inspire new actors to understand, engage with, and advocate for anticipatory action as part of disaster risk reduction through the energetic and embodied dance experience.

The power of song and music for effective early warning communication will be further emphasised, through a traditional performance by Yoppi Andre, sharing about the local wisdom of the Smong through Nandong & Nafi-Nafi. Many credit traditional storytelling practices on Simeulue Island in Aceh with saving the lives of thousands of people in 2004 and 2005 when tsunamis, known locally as “Smong”, struck the coast. Stories passed down through generations warned that one should run to higher ground when the ocean recedes.

The Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX) is an open platform for sharing data across crises and organizations. Launched in July 2014, the goal of HDX is to make humanitarian data easy to find and use for analysis. In 2021, HDX was used by 1.4 million people in 236 countries and territories, maintaining the growth seen in previous years. Organizations regularly add new datasets to the platform, bringing the total to over 19,000 datasets, which were downloaded over 1.8 million times in 2021 alone. HDX is managed by OCHA's Centre for Humanitarian Data, which is located in The Hague. OCHA is part of the United Nations Secretariat and is responsible for bringing together humanitarian actors to ensure a coherent response to emergencies. The HDX team includes OCHA staff and a number of consultants who are based in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. 

This session talks about HDX, the HDX Data Grids, the datasets that the participants can find and use for analysis on HDX related to disaster risk reduction, as well as some of the work the Centre’s team does on anticipatory action in humanitarian response.

This Ignite Stage session presents a new online resource called Earth Observations (EO) Risk Toolkit, as an integral part of the National Risk Information Portal (RiX) under the UNDRR’s flagship initiative called the Global Risk Assessment Framework (GRAF). EO Risk Toolkit is a new hub site, launched during the GP2022, and it is designed to provide DRR users with access to open-sourced tools and services that leverage Earth Observations. GRAF was premised on the Global Assessment Report 2019 to improve risk analytics around interconnected and systemic risk, including the multiplier effect climate change has on vulnerability and the risk landscape. By engaging with government partners, the UN development and humanitarian system and other global and national partners, GRAF supports countries to strengthen their risk data ecosystems.

To help achieve GRAF’s aim, RiX is being established to aggregate open-source risk datasets and information to help drive harmonization and standardization aligned to the Hazard Definition and Classification Review.  As an integral part of RiX, EO Risk Toolkit provides DRR users direct links to a collection of open and free disaster risk analytical tools and services to be used at country level, accompanied by supporting documents. More specifically, EO Risk toolkit comes with use cases and technical guidance of the tools and services as well as thematically oriented policy briefs to help policy makers and practitioners understand how to better leverage the EO data and products in policy-making and DRR operations. 

The target audience for this presentation are potential users of the EO Risk Toolkits, such as emergency responding agencies of national and local governments and development agencies so that they can find the tools and services suitable for their operations. The presentation highlights the importance of Earth Observations as the critical science-basis for DRR policy-making and operations. It introduces a brand new EO Risk Toolkit that helps policy makers and practitioners in policy-making and DRR operations. This session emphasises that the Toolkit provides direct links to EO-leveraged open tools and services to monitor and analyse disaster risks, such as those related to floods, crops and wildfires. 

Not everyone faces the same risk from disasters. People with disabilities and other at-risk groups are often forgotten in disaster risk reduction (DRR) programs and left behind when disaster happens. They are excluded from disaster preparedness measures, are invisible when it comes to community mapping or evacuation, find it harder to access shelters and safe spaces due to environmental barriers or protection risks, and receive inadequate or inappropriate relief and support when they suffer from disaster loss. To address this disproportional risk of persons with disabilities, CBM in partnership with a national civil society organisation called Centre for Disability in Development (CDD), have started disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction (DiDRR) programming in rural communities in Gaibandha region, Bangladesh, in 2009.

During this Ignite Stage presentation, CBM highlight the main learnings from the long-term intervention on DiDRR. Not only do they present on the successful outcomes and replicable approaches, they also look at the remaining gaps, and critically reflect on whether the established community based DiDRR systems are able to continue working without further external financial and technical support from CBM.

Oliver has been working in the development and disability sector for more than 11 years. Since 2016 he worked as a Humanitarian Coordinator for CBM. Oliver is based in Germany and supports the global planning and implementation of humanitarian and DRR programs of CBM. As part of his role he is also involved in training programs that supports the capacity and development of disability inclusive humanitarian and DRR action.

This presentation details the UNDRR's initiative to document and more widely make available, in-depth information on early experiences and engagements with DRR.

There are many historical examples of societies successfully dealing with natural hazards in a pro-active manner, often going back several centuries. But it took until 1970 for the United Nations General Assembly to invite the Secretary-General to submit recommendations for the first time on:

• “Pre-disaster planning at the national and international levels”
• “The application of technology to, and scientific research for, the prevention and control of natural disasters, or the mitigation of the effects of such disasters”.

As a result, DRR at the global level in its contemporary form celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2020. While the recent history of DRR (from 2000) is overall well documented since the establishment of the United Nations International Strategy of Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), there are serious gaps in the knowledge on the different actors and initiatives during the three early DRR decades.

In this Ignite Stage session you will be introduced to three elements of "The Early Days of DRR (1970 - 2000)" initiative.

During the second half of 2020, a moderate to strong La Niña phenomenon was registered with predictions it could cause extreme weather conditions in various parts of the world. In Afghanistan, this commonly results in below-average rainfall and snowfall across the country. The timing of this La Niña event coincides with the main wheat season with harvests in May-July 2021, which are critical for food security and livestock production throughout the country. Instead of waiting for the worst, in November 2020 the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) acted on the warning signs.

The team implemented anticipatory actions to mitigate the impact on farmers and livestock owners including crop and livestock protection packages, cash-for-work, and animal health support among others. The intervention came at a critical time, where 42 percent of the population is already estimated to be in acute food insecurity at crisis or worse levels, and limited wheat harvests could further exacerbate the situation. Drought was officially declared in the country on the 22nd of June 2021. However, FAO managed to act early, a whole 8 months earlier, thereby showing the importance of predicating crises and providing pre-emptive support.    

This Ignite Stage session dives into this case study and, with the Centre for Disaster Protection and Oxford University, explores the impact of the approach. It showcases the preliminary results of a conjoint impact analysis. The session’s aim is to advance understanding of the food insecurity situation in Afghanistan and explore the efficacy of anticipatory action to combat the negative effects of drought; it will also examine the linkages between and the comparative advantages of anticipatory action versus emergency response along with key emerging lessons on addressing the gamut of constraints in programming for anticipatory action in conflict settings. This case study should make an important contribution to a limited existing base of evidence.

This session presents the latest technological approaches which allow countries and organisations to become Sendai-ready. Mayday would like to showcase how they have implemented these concepts in concrete applications, like the Mayday.ai platform, providing real-time risk and disaster management covering all geographical regions, multiple disasters and all phases of the disaster cycle. This includes dynamic risk monitoring at the parcel level. This presentation highlights practical cases and shows how Mayday are effectively implementing the approach with local authorities (e.g. in Germany, Chile) and other selected international organisations.

At the 7th Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Bali, Indonesia, a special session will be held ahead of launching a new communications campaign in 2022 in support of Indigenous Disaster Risk Reduction. This session will gather delegates, including delegates from the indigenous community to discuss the key priorities of engagement ahead.

The session will take place on Thursday 26th May, at 9.00 am in the Mengwi Room 6+7+8 of Nusa Dua Convention Center, Bali. Please note that this session will be in hybrid format.

All interested delegates are warmly invited to join.

The objective of this session is to understand the perspectives of the communities most at risks. The session will provide an opportunity to the audience to understand the how the process of ‘Views from the Frontline 2019’ (the flagship program of GNDR) has helped these communities to identify their own risks and develop their own plans to address the issues and get them integrated in their local development plan; thus ensuring that the development is risk informed. 

Through live connection, the session will be hearing voices directly of communities on the frontline of risk from Zimbabwe and Cambodia, and will be supported by in-person presentation and pre-recorded videos.

This session will take place in Room Mengwi 6+7+8.

The objective of this session is to create a space to hear about the perspectives of at-risk communities. The session will cover the three themes, namely a) “Voices from the field: working with nature for resilience”; b) “Empowering communities for improved resilience towards epidemics including cholera”; and c) “Roadmap to community resilience – community perspectives”. Through the live connection with communities and in-person presentation, the session will provide GPDRR 2022 participants with an opportunity to hear about the stories and messages from community people living on the frontline of risk and community resilience practitioners in Haiti, Mexico, Philippines, Indonesia, Cameroun, Kenya, Nepal, Bangladesh, Nigeria and small island states in the Pacific.

This session will take place in Room Mengwi 6+7+8.

Join this session via Zoom. Click here.