Assembling Ecosystems for Humanitarian Anticipatory Action

It’s a truism that “in a crisis, time is of the essence”.   This plays out on a real world stage when floods, draughts, conflict, or other disasters disrupt and sometimes devastate communities.  In the past, action on these humanitarian crises was often delayed until events were already well underway. 

Anticipatory Action - Acting Before the Crisis

Several years ago, a new innovative crisis response was pioneered by several large humanitarian agencies.  “Anticipatory Action” (AA) programs sought to predict the onset of a crisis and then use that extra time to prepare for events that were soon to impact the community.    This not only provided extra time for action, but it also made it possible to pursue different kinds of response in an environment that wasn’t already in the middle of crisis.  

Ecosystem Innovators Expand the Reach of AA

These programs proved to be successful and in the last few years, new organizations have been working to develop the next generation of AA initiatives. This growth has allowed AA to be applied in more locations and to different types of crisis.

It has also created an ecosystem innovation challenge.  While the original pioneers of AA were generally large agencies with extensive internal capabilities, many of today’s second generation of AA innovators have some, but not all, of the tools they need to create a complete program.

The diagram below, developed with the guidance of AA expert Emily Montier, shows just how many varied parts are needed to design an effective AA program.   

This difficult innovation challenge creates an opening for specialist organizations.  Specialists can add missing LEGO blocks, providing selected key skills that plugin and complete a new AA ecosystem.   

A Guide to "Plugging-In" Services to an AA Ecosystem

In 2024 Emily Montier, Hannah Reichardt, and I worked with the H2H Network to explore how this assembly of AA ecosystems might be supported.  The potential we saw for bold growth and creativity was exciting.

The resulting report issued by H2H applies to AA development, but also has a number of general insights that can be broadly applied across other collaborative efforts to build an ecosystem.  

See the full report here.