Anticipatory Action Framework Philippines - Tropical Cyclones (As of 03 October 2025)

Executive Summary

The humanitarian sector is scaling up anticipatory action (AA), enabling proactive mobilization of resources to get ahead of predictable climate-related shocks and disease outbreaks through robust forecasting (triggers), pre-agreed activities, and pre-arranged funding. The objective of this AA framework is to mitigate, and to a certain extent prevent, the severe impact of typhoons on people’s homes and livelihoods, while building on government’s mandatory pre-emptive evacuation procedures that save lives. With this intervention, the most at-risk communities will have better financial resources to prepare prior to landfall.

This framework outlines an approach to a collective anticipatory action delivered at scale as an innovative attempt to scale-up typhoon response in the Philippines. The document includes details about the forecasting trigger (the Model), the pre-agreed action plans (the Delivery) and the pre-arranged financing (the Money). An investment will be made in documenting evidence of the impact of AA (the Learning).

The financing

The Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) has pre-arranged up to US$ 6 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to support the present framework. This funding is complemented by an additional $4 million from other partners, including UN agencies, NGOs and the Red Cross. The funding will allow partners to provide assistance in Food Security and Agriculture, Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM) and Emergency Shelter, Gender Based Violence, Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Sexual and Reproductive Health, Child Protection, Nutrition and Education.

The trigger

The financing and activities included in this framework will be triggered by any of the following: readiness trigger, action trigger or observational trigger. If the readiness and/or action triggers are reached, the framework is immediately activated. If only the observational trigger, activation has to be confirmed on/or before landfall or up to 72 hours before landfall of a super typhoon.

• Readiness Trigger: 3-7 days prior to forecast landfall (Return Period: 1 in 5.7 years)
  • Tropical Cyclone (TC) with potential to reach greater than 177 km/h maximum 10-minute sustained wind speed (200 km/h 1-minute sustained wind speed) to focus on stronger typhoons.
  • Projected to directly impact areas within Region 5, 8 and/or 13 (Caraga).
• Activation Trigger: on or before 72 hours (3 days) prior to forecast landfall (Return Period: 1 in 3.4 years)
  • Use a separate regional threshold matrix with a return period of more than three years for Regions V, VIII, and Caraga. This will be used to compare against 510 model outputs at 72 hours before landfall, in order to account for varying regional vulnerabilities.
  • Threshold is reached and the anticipatory action framework is activated if on or before 72 hours (3 days) prior to landfall (or sooner) the predicted number of houses to be totally damaged fall within the range of the regional threshold matrix.
• Readiness activation with action activation
  • The readiness and action activation can be triggered at the same time with a cut-off of 72 hours prior to the tropical cyclones forecast landfall.
  • Activation trigger can be reached and activated if the estimates on the total number of destroyed houses reaches the regional thresholds even without readiness trigger activation on/or before 72 hours before the tropical cyclones forecast landfall.
• Observational Triggers: at landfall or up to 72 hours before landfall of a super typhoon (185 km/h 10 mins sustained wind speed) (Return Period: 1 in 4.5 years)
  • If the anticipatory action triggers are not met on/before 72 hours prior to landfall, an observational trigger may be activated any time from that point up until landfall (0 to 72 hours before landfall). The classification for a tropical cyclone activation the observational trigger is a super typhoon on/before landfall with sustained wind speeds of 185 km/h or higher (10 min sustained windspeed), as reported by state weather bureau PAGASA.
  • OCHA to meet with OCD (if possible) and/or access PDRA scenario (if available) as soon as possible when a forecast of super typhoon is known. It can be before the 72hrs or at least 2 days before landfall.
  • Meeting of CERF AA agencies to reach a consensus based on available information should be held as soon as a super typhoon forecast becomes available. This can happen even before the 72-hour mark, but final decisions may need to wait until the AA threshold is either met or not met at the cutoff time of 72hrs before forecast landfall.
  • The group would have to consider that at least 50% of region will be within the damaging winds of super typhoon.

The action plan

The framework will enable agencies to implement both anticipatory and very early response activities in a coordinated manner. The pre-agreed actions will focus on the following core objectives:

• Communicating risks, engaging with communities, and early warning messaging: early warnings, community early actions and hygiene messaging.
• Providing in-kind assistance: including dignity and hygiene kits, modular tents, therapeutic nutrition, and water infrastructure rehabilitation.
• Provision of Select Types of Cash Assistance: This includes Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance (MPCA), sector-specific cash, and community cash grants, all aimed at strengthening household and community level preparedness based on self-identified priorities.
• Facilitating access to services: through mobile health clinics, maternal and mental health services, nutrition screening, water quality measures, referrals for protection needs, and facilitating access to safe storage sites of farm and fishing equipment.

Early response activities were selected based on experience from previous typhoon responses, operational capacity and the ability to deliver within a short period of time after the landfall of the typhoon. The implementation of the early response activities as part of this framework should not exceed 2-4 weeks after the onset of the disaster.

The learning

In 2024, OCHA partnered with Kobo (an international humanitarian non-profit organization) and researchers at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, to design an evaluation of the framework for Tropical Cyclones. The evaluation will measure the impact of select AA interventions on households and communities and inform learning from innovative pilots such as community cash grants and safe storage interventions. An after-action review was conducted to capture lessons learned from the successive tropical cyclones that occurred in 2024. Among the key updates were the refinement of regional triggers and the integration of observational triggers into the activation process. The review also incorporated insights from previous AA activations within the country, as well as experiences from other countries.

Communication activities

The Resident Coordinator, together with UN agencies and partners, agreed to place strong emphasis on communications for the upcoming AA framework. This includes a commitment to communicate as “One UN” — telling a unified story before, during, and after the response.

OCHA, in collaboration with the five participating UN agencies, is currently developing a communications plan for the OCHA AA framework for 2025. The plan will outline key messages, communication activities, and strategies for demonstrating the impact of anticipatory action.

Validity period

The present framework is valid for an initial period of two years following endorsement of the ERC (2025-2026). The 2025 framework will cover until January 2026 while the 2026 framework will cover until January 2027. This is to cover any unusual tropical cyclones formation in the month of January. For 2026, lessons learned from both the development and potential implementation of the framework will be applied to enhance and increase the scope of the current framework in collaboration with the AA Group.