Early Warning, Preparedness and Anticipation
Global Focal Points
UNDP's Work on Early Warning, Preparedness and Anticipation
UNDP champions early warning and preparedness initiatives for effective anticipatory action ahead of crises, and as core components of resilience building and risk-informed development. UNDP’s service offer for climate and disaster early warning and preparedness outlines the efforts and capabilities deployed by the organization to build a holistic multidimensional understanding of early warning, early action and preparedness. Preparedness actions strengthen capacities across governments, organizations, communities, and individuals to anticipate, respond to, and recover from impending or potential future crises.
To date, the organization has provided improved access to early warnings for over 13 million people, thus protecting lives, securing livelihoods and safeguarding development gains. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to strengthen international cooperation, coordination and solidarity to improve preparedness efforts. Enhancing evidence-based decision-making has been a key component of this. Reducing the impact of climate change and disaster risk, addressing the underlying—often overlapping and compounding—drivers of conflict and risk, and building resilience continues to be a priority within UNDP.
For UNDP, risk anticipation and anticipatory action ahead of imminent crises require a solid understanding of risks and their interaction, as well as of the capacities and actions needed to respond. Foresight grants policymakers and decision-makers the ability to become anticipatory, and to make development choices that are risk-informed and forward-looking.
Resources
- What if famine in the Horn of Africa was a thing of the past? - research package
- Beyond Drought: A Systems Thinking Approach to Drought Resilience in the Horn of Africa (2024)
- Process Quick Start Guide: A hindsight-insight-foresight approach to working with multidimensional risk (2024)
- Interactive Systems Map
- Overview presentation: What if we were able to avert the next famine in the Horn of Africa? (2024)
- Getting Ahead of the Crisis Curve: UNDP's Approach to Multi-Hazard Early Warning and Preparedness (2024)
- Anticipating the Impacts of Climate Change Related Human Mobility in Pakistan and Viet Nam (2024)
- UNDP Signals Spotlight 2024
- UNDP Signals Spotlight 2023
UNDP Project Proposals
- Risk Scenario Building Tools to Support Anticipatory Action for Long-Term, Complex Development Challenges
- Technology Readiness: Tools to Guide Technological Innovation for Early Warning and Preparedness
- Ethical Data Management for Early Warning and Preparedness
- UNDP GARD Programme
- Strengthening Disaster Preparedness and Anticipatory Capacities in West and Central Africa
Country Examples
- Global: With climate change and an uncertain future, digital solutions are vital to preparing for disasters
- Cambodia: Strengthening Climate Information and Early Warning Systems to Support Climate-Resilient Development in Cambodia
- Ecuador: Deforestation, Cows, and Data: Data Powered Positive Deviance Pilot in Ecuador’s Amazon
- Europe and Central Asia: Early warnings save lives and support long-term sustainability
- Georgia: Strengthening the Climate Adaptation Capacities in Georgia
- Georgia: Building a climate resilient Georgia
- India: DiCRA - A Digital Public Good that Harnesses Open-Source Tech to Boost Climate Resilient Agriculture
- Kenya: CLIMWARN Project in Kenya on Early Warning Systems
- Malawi: Scaling Up the Use of Modernized Climate Information and Early Warning Systems (M-Climes)
- Nepal: Reducing Disaster Risks and Enhancing Emergency Response Capacities in Multi-Hazard Risk Prone Urban Areas of Nepal
- Sahel: The Sahel Resilience Project
- Vanuatu: Future-fitting strategic planning for development in Vanuatu
- Ukraine: Strengthening Disaster Risk Reduction and recovery in Ukraine
- Uzbekistan: Developing timely and quality climate services and upgrading multi-hazard early warning system in Uzbekistan
Browse our exploratory "What if" blog series
Using Foresight
How can we achieve meaningful, sustainable development which is not undermined by crises? Foresight and the concept of working with alternative futures grants policymakers and decision-makers the ability to become anticipatory and to support both risk-informed and forward-looking development.
Read UNDP's latest publications:
UNDP Service Offer on Climate and Disaster Early Warning and Preparedness
UNDP Preparedness Toolkit
The Toolkit is an enabler for UNDP to support countries to enhance their institutional, strategic, and operational capabilities for preparedness and anticipatory action, improve the speed and efficiency of UNDP’s programmatic solutions, and apply foresight to inform its development work, including in crisis settings.
Preparedness Learning Pathway
The UNDP Preparedness Learning Pathway facilitates joint learning and knowledge exchange for and among decision-makers and practitioners from national and local local.
Gaming for Preparedness
UNDP and IOM are joining forces to harness the power of serious gaming as an innovative and effective way to engage audiences in understanding, preparing for, and responding to a range of risks and crises.