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Safeguarding agricultural livelihoods and food security by scaling up Anticipatory Actions









FAO. 2023. Safeguarding agricultural livelihoods and food security by scaling up Anticipatory Actions. Rome.




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    Brochure, flyer, fact-sheet
    After-Action Review of the Early Warning Messaging Activity under the Scaling up Early Warning and Anticipatory Action for Agriculture and Food Security Project (EWAA) in Zimbabwe 2022
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    Early warning messaging has been crucial to protect smallholder farmers’ crops, livestock and assets, as well as livelihoods. Collaborating with the government of Zimbabwe’s Meteorological Services department which provided updated forecasts for the targeted areas on a regular basis, and FAO facilitated the broadcast of these messages through various formats managed by the Ntepe-Manama Community Radio station. During the 2021/22 agricultural season, farmers and households in the target wards received early warning and weather forecast messages twice a week to coincide with the Meteorological Services Department’s three-day forecasting period. Early warning and short-range forecasting information was broadcast to farmers in Gwanda, parts of Matobo and parts of Beitbridge. The early warning messages were transmitted through the four local languages that are indigenous to the district; Sotho, Babirwa, Venda and Ndebele. This ensured that weather messages were simple enough for better understanding by the recipients. The messages disseminated provided information on the weather conditions for the following three days. When extreme weather conditions were predicted, early warning information and corresponding advisories were broadcast to enable farmers to activate their coping strategies, and implement other pre-emptive actions to protect crops, livestock and assets. An After-Action Review process was conducted to assess the impact of the messaging on the targeted farmers and derive recommendations for further improvement of the activity. The outcome showed that the messages influenced the farmers' short-term farming choices.
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    Brochure, flyer, fact-sheet
    Anticipatory action for livelihood protection and food security: Concepts and practices for a system-wide shift from reactive to preventive approaches to crises
    Webinar – 19 November 2020: Summary points, questions and answers
    2021
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    The term ‘anticipatory action’ refers to actions triggered before a crisis in order to mitigate the worst effects, or even avoid a crisis altogether. The timing of livelihood protection actions for an impending crisis is critical: decision dates do not work if they are based on the observed seriousness of the crisis, and if funding and action cannot be mobilised quickly. Rather, the timing should be determined by the livelihood calendar or timeline. Therefore, understanding windows of opportunity is as critical to the success of anticipatory action as determining the kinds of activity that can help reduce human suffering. Notable progress has been made in the past years on anticipatory action. A number of organizations - such as the Food and Agiruclture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the START Network – have successfully worked with national counterparts for linking early warning to anticipatory action through pre-arranged financing, with encouraging results in terms of livelihood protection and crisis prevention. The approach is currently being scaled up in humanitarian settings through an inter-agency collaboration led by OCHA. Now a system-wide change is needed to achieve the full benefits of anticipatory action for livelihood protection, moving towards a nexus approach with shared responsibility between government departments, development partners and humanitarian agencies.
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    Booklet
    Global Early Warning – Early Action Report on Food Security and Agriculture
    April - June 2017
    2017
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    The quarterly Global Early Warning – Early Action Report on Food Security and Agriculture monitors situations at risk for potential disasters and adverse impacts on food security and agriculture. Risks are categorized according to their potential consequence as either “high risk” or “on watch” so that preventive action can be taken. The Report provides consolidated, easy to read, country-by-country mapping and analysis of crisis situations such as conflict, drought, flood, plants and animals pests and diseases. In the April to June, 2017 issue, areas of high risk are South Sudan, due to ongoing famine and conflict; and Yemen and Northeast Nigeria where there is risk of famine linked to conflict; and Somalia, where risk of famine is due to continuing drought. Current on watch situations are caused by a potential El Niño. In the Sub-Saharan Region there is a Fall Army Worm outbreak; In Syria, Iraq, and the Democratic Republic of Congo food security is at risk due to conflict; while Kenya, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, and Uganda are at risk because of drought, and as well, displacement is an added factor for Uganda; Madagascar has dry conditions and cyclone.

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