Attachments
Executive summary
In 2023, about 281 million people in 59 countries faced high levels of acute food insecurity. This number has increased by 24 million people since 2022, marking the fifth consecutive year of rising numbers. Weather extremes were the main driver of food crises in 18 of these countries, and affected the food security of almost 72 million people. Such worrying trends, combined with strained resources, call for scaling up innovative approaches – such as anticipatory action (AA) – to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of support provided to vulnerable households that depend on agriculture for their food security. The global climate crisis, the increasing conflicts and the worsening of protracted food crises are causing an escalation of humanitarian needs.
FAO has prioritized AA to safeguard agricultural livelihoods and food security against forecast hazards and shocks. Through a comprehensive strategy and collaboration with partners, FAO has integrated AA as part of its emergency and resilience programme approach, making anticipation a key modality in saving the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable rural populations from the immediate impact of predictable shocks, thereby reducing humanitarian needs and protecting development and resilience gains. FAO’s longstanding technical and operational expertise in protecting agricultural livelihoods plays a unique role in coordinated efforts to curb food insecurity, since the majority of acutely hungry people live in rural areas.
In 2023, FAO assisted more than 2 million people in 24 countries with anticipatory assistance, almost a fourfold increase compared to 2022. Most interventions focused especially on mitigating the effects of El Niño-induced floods and droughts globally. Guided by the El Niño Anticipatory Action and Response Plan, FAO’s interventions – supported by funds from the Special Fund for Emergency and Rehabilitation Activities (SFERA) and the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) – included the provision of tailored early warnings, trainings, drought-tolerant seeds, animal health support, and conditional and unconditional cash transfers. These helped farmers and herders keep their animals healthy, sustain agricultural production and safeguard their food security ahead of climate extremes.
Results from preliminary assessments show how farmers were able to continue producing food locally, and to protect their animals and productive assets. Analyses of food security indicators show that anticipatory actions helped families maintain acceptable levels of food consumption, and in some cases to improve dietary diversity. In short, humanitarian impacts of disasters were avoided thanks to these interventions.
FAO’s regional and national efforts have been instrumental in establishing and implementing AA frameworks across various regions. These efforts encompass risk analysis, early warning systems and AA planning.
In 2023, FAO was engaged in 29 AA protocols serving as effective tools to monitor priority risks and to inform timely interventions ahead of disasters.
Capacity development has been a cornerstone of FAO’s strategy to AA, with numerous workshops and training sessions conducted to enhance skills in AA implementation, targeting FAO staff and partners across countries. These workshops have not only strengthened networks among stakeholders but also promoted a shared understanding and identified innovative solutions to regional and country-specific challenges. FAO gave priority to supporting governments and intergovernmental bodies with the integration of the anticipatory approach within their disaster risk management and risk financing strategies, with encouraging successes.
FAO continued to play a central role in partnerships, initiatives and coordination platforms related to AA – including the Anticipatory Action Task Force, Risk-informed Early Action Partnership, Anticipation Hub, Early Warnings for All, Grand Bargain Caucus on Anticipatory Action, the global Food Security Cluster Anticipatory Action Technical Working Group – as well as multiple dedicated technical working groups at regional and country level.
In response to worrying global food insecurity trends, FAO and the World Food Programme (WFP) developed a joint Anticipatory Action Strategy in September 2023, to maximize benefits for at-risk communities through comprehensive measures, expanded geographic coverage and policy integration. Additionally, FAO, WFP and the Global Network against Food Crises published principles and recommendations to scale up efforts towards anticipating food crises. FAO also contributed to recommendations for strengthening early warning systems to tackle the climate crisis, and continued to provide guidance for anticipatory action in agriculture and food security, including updated toolkits and e-learning courses.
FAO is committed to further scale up the work on anticipatory action. The Organization has committed to reaching 80 million people annually by 2025 with emergency and resilience interventions, including anticipatory actions. FAO has also committed to allocate 20 percent of its emergency and resilience portfolio to anticipatory action.
Reaching these targets requires stronger collaboration and coordination among humanitarian, development, peace and climate actors; increased levels of pre-arranged and flexible financial resources; and continued learning from the successes and failures of the approach to inform future programming based on evidence.