Early warning in Afar & Somali: what worked & what didn’t

The Preparedness Improves Livelihoods and Resilience (PILLARII) project sought to improve the drought preparedness of pastoralists in Somali and Afar Regions of Ethiopia. With the support of ECHO (European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office), Save the Children UK facilitated community contingency planning and early-warning systems (EWS) which were meant to lead to community-level responses to shocks and hazards.

SC-UK commissioned a study into the challenges faced by the project: Save the Children UK experiences on piloting community based early warning systems in 3 districts of Somali and Afar Regions of Ethiopia: what worked and what didn’t. In the three districts on which the study focused, it identified a lack of basic local capacities in terms of skills, logistics and resources to be able to implement the EWS monitoring and response without external assistance. The report highlights the lessons learnt and points to some “best practices” in setting up community-based early-warning and response systems. A Technical Brief based on this study asks “Pastoral community-based early warning systems: why don’t we really understand them?“.

Posted on 30 September 2012 in Pastoralism & Climate Change, Pastoralism & Natural Resources