Impact story: Breaking the cycle of negative coping strategies - Lessons from anticipatory action in Niger 2022
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Highlights
- In Niger, persistent droughts and floods compounded by conflict and insecurity are driving humanitarian needs.
- Year after year, communities are forced to resort to negative coping strategies as they have few resources to cope with recurrent droughts.
- In 2022, OCHA and partners established an anticipatory action framework in Niger to get ahead of droughts and reduce their impact on vulnerable communities.
- The framework was activated in August 2022, and the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) released US$9.5 million to reduce the drought’s impact on more than 160,000 people. This was months earlier than a traditional CERF rapid response allocation for droughts.
- Acting before people experienced the drought’s full impact prevented them from resorting to negative coping strategies.
- Anticipatory interventions, such as cash-for-work programmes, education grants and cash, gave households timely income and support, preventing them from pulling children out of school or migrating for work.
- The pilot demonstrated the added value of observational triggers for anticipatory action in drought contexts.
- It also taught valuable lessons in how to improve the impact of anticipatory action.