Philippines: CERF AA (Anticipatory Action) Framework, 2023 Revision

1.Overview

Summary

The purpose of this document is to present the framework for anticipatory action (AA) in the Philippines, including the forecasting trigger (the model), the pre-agreed action plans (the delivery) and the pre-arranged financing (the money).
Executive summary The Framework outlines an approach to a collective anticipatory action delivered at scale as an innovative attempt to pilot typhoon response in the Philippines. The document includes details about the forecasting trigger (the Model), the preagreed action plans (the Delivery) and the pre-arranged financing (the Money). As this is a learning pilot an investment will be made in documenting evidence and learning (the Learning). CERF has allocated $7.5 million for this pilot in typhoon season 2023.

The objective of the pilot is to mitigate, and to a certain extent prevent, the severe impact of typhoons on people’s homes and livelihoods, while building on government’s mandatory pre-emptive evacuation procedures that saves lives. With this intervention, the most at-risk communities will have better financial resources to prepare prior to landfall. Multi-sectoral assistance will be delivered by the UN agencies, NGOs and the Red Cross/Red Crescent in close collaboration with local authorities. For example, IOM will provide cash assistance and support vulnerable families in strengthening their houses;

FAO’s intervention will promote preservation of livelihoods and income by supporting poor farmers and fisherfolks to rent a secure and safe place for their farming and fishing tools and livestock while FAO’s multi-purpose cash will support other needs; and WFP’s multi-purpose cash will support food and other relevant needs while in evacuation. Anticipatory action interventions will mount a collective humanitarian action at scale to mitigate the impact of a severe typhoon hitting Region 5 (Bicol), Region 8 (Eastern Visayas) and/or Region 13 (Caraga). In March 2022, the AA Core Group conducted an afteraction review and recommended a few improvements to the pilot. To extend the geographic coverage of the pilot, two scenarios were developed for the 2022 AA under CERF to cover most vulnerable areas in Region 5, 8 and 13 (Caraga).

Scenario 1 covers pilot areas in Region 5 and Samar Island Provinces (Northern Samar/Eastern Samar/Western Samar) in Region 8. Scenario 2 covers Region 13 (Caraga) and Leyte Island provinces in Region 8 (Leyte/Southern Leyte) The pilot aims to reach about 378,400 people under Scenario 1 and 179,350 people under Scenario 2 with assistance ahead of a typhoon’s landfall.

The Model includes a trigger mechanism based on the ECMWF forecast and IFRC/ Netherlands Red Cross 510 probabilistic typhoon impact prediction model developed for the Philippines that is using the ensemble of forecasted tracks and wind speed from high resolution model to predict the impact. The Humanitarian Data Centre will support OCHA and the Triggers group in monitoring the development of tropical cyclones and running a parallel program based on the model developed by NLRC 510.

Each CERF AA Scenario follows a 2-stage trigger activation:

1. Readiness trigger (pre-activation): 4-7 days prior to forecast landfall

a. Tropical Cyclone with potential to reach category level 3 or higher (greater than 178 km/h maximum 1-minute sustained wind speed/ 158 km/h maximum 10-minute sustained wind speed).

b. Projected to directly impact areas within Region 5,8 and 13 (Caraga).

2. Activation trigger: on or before 72 hrs (3 days) prior to forecast landfall

a. As soon as ECMWF forecasts are available for a certain TC, OCHA Philippines together with HDX will calculate the predicted total number of totally damaged buildings using the 510 model, produce an impact map, and update every 6-12 hours.

b. Threshold is reached and CERF anticipatory action activated if 72 hours (3 days) before landfall (or sooner) the predicted number of houses to be totally damaged fall within the range of 50% probability that 80,000 houses will be totally damaged to 95% probability that at least 5,000 houses will be totally damaged.

The Delivery. In case of sudden-onset disasters such as typhoon response, the delivery of anticipatory action is time critical.

For this pilot, anticipatory interventions have been selected to be rooted in the current operating environment and government mandatory evacuation and safety protocols. Consideration is given to the compounding effects of COVID-19, the agency’s operational capacity to deliver within the limited time window, the ability to mitigate the impact of typhoon damage, CERF funding priorities addressing protection, lessons learned from the 2021 near activation of the Framework, the 2022 Simulation Exercise and the no regrets approach.

Above all, proposed anticipatory action interventions that save shelter and livelihoods, should not interfere or disincentivize government’s pre-emptive interventions that save lives. The contingency of operating in the continued COVID-19 context requires stricter adherence to health protocols in the evacuation centres, meaning that preparations for mandatory evacuations would commence even earlier.

Given the very short lead times, the following interventions are being proposed under this pilot:

About 65% (scenario 1) or 64% (scenario 2) of the overall CERF anticipatory action pilot budget will be used through cash assistance, both multi-purpose as well as sectoral top-ups. Unconditional pre-emptive multi-purpose cash will be delivered as a blanket contribution US$62 (PhP 3,250) or 1/3 of the Minimum Expenditure Basket (MEB) transfer value to support needs for 10 days (3 days prior to 7 days after landfall) including transportation costs by FAO, IOM, UNICEF, UNFPA and WFP to 75,600 most vulnerable households (378,000 beneficiaries) living in prioritized provinces of Region 5, and Region 8 for scenario 1 and by FAO, IOM, UNFPA and WFP to 35,800 most vulnerable households (179,000 beneficiaries) in Region 8 and Region 13 (Caraga). The pilot is designed around a two-staged approach to cash distribution. WFP and FAO will trigger cash distribution 72 hours before landfall, IOM will ensure its distribution close to evacuation centres. FAO, together with OXFAM, and Philippine Red Cross (PRC) will work with local communities to rent schools, local community halls, and places of worship to store critical livelihood items, such as boats and nets for fisherfolk or tools and seeds for farmers. By providing safe-storage sites, the intervention will preserve hard-won development gains and key livelihoods for 400 households and most vulnerable farmers and fisherfolks. To 15,500 agriculture dependent families, FAO will provide multipurpose cash intervention and 77,900 agri-households will benefit from messaging and agro-climate advisories. The FAOled interventions will consider market-based approach to anticipatory action.

IOM will ensure that evacuees have access to safe and dignified living conditions at the onset of their pre-emptive evacuation by providing modular tents in government-recognized evacuation centers (ECs). IOM’s cash-based intervention (CBI) will facilitate immediate access to appropriate materials and tools for evacuees to repair their shelters right after typhoon’s landfall. These interventions will alleviate grave stress from sudden displacement and promote early recovery, thereby contributing to prevention of prolonged displacement and mitigate socio-economic loss from disasters.

UNFPA will ensure that those who are at the highest risk (pregnant and vulnerable women) will be reached with multipurpose cash (US $62) and with sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and gender-based violence (GBV) / protection commodities and information. The focus will be on ensuring linkage to continuous lifesaving SRHR and GBV services and ensuring the right to dignity guided by the survivor centered approach and protection from sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA) before, during and after a significant typhoon event.

UNICEF will provide unconditional cash transfer as a top-up to the government flagship social protection program (Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program or 4Ps) beneficiaries, to finance child-centered needs of vulnerable families for health, nutrition, WASH, education, and protection; and continued access to time-sensitive services before disruption by the typhoon.

To ensure the engagement and participation of communities at risk, the START Network and the UN agencies carried out a collective pre-crisis survey in Region 5 and Region 8 on the appropriateness and feasibility of their proposed anticipatory interventions. Anticipatory action interventions were developed also in consultation with ICCG and each cluster, as per the revised HCT Minimum Operations Protocol that incorporates anticipatory action as its standard way of responding to significant typhoons during the 2023 typhoon season.

The Learning. Learning from the pilot aims to demonstrate how collective and coordinated AA could work at scale and generate proof that, when early action is implemented, it is faster, cheaper and more dignified than a traditional humanitarian response.

An ad hoc M&E group, i.e. the Learning Team, was established to assess how collective and coordinated early action can work at scale for typhoon response in the Philippines as well as capture and share learning about how to improve the approach to planning and implementation of anticipatory interventions. To ensure the localization of learning, local actors such as the government, will form part of the M&E group.

Process learning has been applied throughout the development of this framework and a number of issues already surfaced that would merit further consideration, such as the importance of setting aside sufficient start-up funds to enable UN agencies with preparedness activities, the need to harmonize from the outset the strategy and messages to be shared with counterparts, and the importance of technical-legal advocacy of the AA approach at the country level based on local requirements for its institutionalization. Considering lingering COVID-19 operational reality, additional focus was placed on supporting safe pre-emptive evacuations and ensuring hygiene protocols are observed in evacuations centres. The pilot has been developed jointly by UN agencies with deep expertise in forecast-based financing and those with operational capabilities and years of experience in responding to highly unpredictable typhoons in the Philippines. OCHA has been invited to become a member of the government-led Technical Working Group on Anticipatory Action and is providing regular updates on the CERF AA pilot.

OCHA will likely commission an independent impact evaluation to gather and analyse data documenting the results by focusing on the delivery model, particularly cash assistance, and on evaluating impact on household income.

Communication activities. At the request of the RC/HC, the UN agencies and partners agreed to put strong emphasis on communication activities also to ensure communicating as “One UN” and communicating the story before, during, and after the AA response. OCHA prepared an operational communications plan for the project, including key messages, communication activities and approach to communicating impact, see Annex.