Climate finance refers to local, national or transnational financing from public, private and alternative sources to address greenhouse gas emissions and enable adaptation to the adverse effects of climate change. While climate financing is in the title of the CODE-NGO Soc Dev Week 2023 Online Learning Session on October 16th in the afternoon, the session focused on Anticipatory Action or AA. AA challenges traditional humanitarian responses by ensuring that funds are already available before a crisis starts. In fact, the ASEAN recognizes the necessity of integrating anticipatory action and establishing AA systems to strengthening disaster management across the region. Arvin Caro of the Start Network Philippines declared in the session that the world is entering a new era for humanitarian action, one that focuses on locally-led action, new forms of financing, and collective innovation.
The Start Network is a network of aid agencies across the world, made up of more than 80 non-governmental organizations across five continents. These are a mix of large international organizations to local and national NGOs working together to revolutionize the global humanitarian system. In the Philippines, the Start Network has several programs including the Disaster Risk Financing (DRF) which pre-positions funds for events related to typhoons. The DRF is governed by Start Network members and national NGOs in the Philippines and approves the activation of the response according to the alerts and triggers of the system. When a typhoon is about to hit the country, there is a way to predict the impact of the typhoon using the technology by the Netherlands Red Cross called 510 forecast model. Once the DRF is activated, consortium partners may now mobilize their anticipatory action. The consortium partners are present in the focus geographical areas of the DRF (Cagayan Valley, Eastern Visayas and Caraga region) composed of the lead Start Network member and the local organizations. In the recent response for TS Egay, the Cagayan Consortium successfully managed to distribute cash assistance to the communities that they serve. It was no mean feat, but they pulled it off with flying colors.
This example may lead to good practices on responding to disasters enhanced by climate change, and more importantly the response is locally led. CODE-NGO is one of the organizations leading the set-up of a Philippine Hub supported by the Start Network, along with national NGOs that work on community based DRRM, CSO networks and local organizations. The Hub may replicate and expand these practices and lead communities to resiliency.