Despite years of progress in early warning systems for East Africa and excitement around the potential of early action to reduce human suffering, there has not been significant use of early action in the region.
It is not clear if this incongruity reflects issues with the early warning information itself (e.g., timing, content), challenges linking early warning information to early actions, or other reasons, such as a lack of funding.
Where are some of the issues and challenges?
Let’s start with early warning information itself. Data collection and analysis play crucial roles in early warning systems and although they have advanced considerably, there continue to be gaps.
Available data are often insufficient for developing baselines or monitoring conditions on the ground. And, for the data that do exist, there can be concerns regarding data quality and issues related to sharing (or lack thereof) between agencies and across scales.
In some cases, systems labelled as early warning systems actually report solely on current conditions.
Inconsistent forecasts (relating to both the weather but also food security, humanitarian needs, etc.) from different channels are sometimes provided without information on likelihood, which can cause considerable confusion and can make agencies cautious in responding to early warning information.
Often, the process of data collection, processing and transmission to officials is very long and can reduce or entirely deplete the opportunity for early actions.
Further, this pre-supposes that indicators are actually available in time to trigger early actions.
Beyond the information itself, there are challenges to link early warning to early action.
In 2022, the Jameel Observatory for Food Security Early Action and partners convened several virtual mini dialogues on priority topics related to the Observatory vision. The aim was to identify priority research, learning and other actions that the Observatory and a wider community of collaborators can tackle.
This dialogue on 12 April 2022 was championed by Nigist Biru, FEWS NET and Brenda Lazarus, FAO. Brenda provided the framing presentation; Dan Maxwell from Tufts University gave initial reactions. This brief was substantially reviewed by Nigist and Brenda and finalized by Nathan Jensen of the University of Edinburgh.