Disaster-ready from the start

Climate change fuels many types of disaster, far outstripping the capacity of humanitarian aid to address the impacts. In the Philippines, typhoons, flooding and landslides are becoming both more likely and more intense. Yet public disaster assistance in the country is reactive by design, arriving weeks or months after lives and livelihoods have been lost or irreversibly destabilised. Even then, aid may not be delivered where needed most.

A network of well over 100 NGO members worldwide, Start Network launched the disaster risk financing programme Start Ready in 2021 to transform aid delivery by setting up disaster forecast models, developing anticipatory plans and lining up funds for rapid release when and where they’re needed. Funded by donors including the Swiss Re Foundation, this global mechanism stretches aid dollars by pooling risks across geographies and types of disaster and by using reinsurance to hedge against large losses.

To identify the most vulnerable and the assistance they most need in case of disaster, Start Network members and local partners develop contingency plans in consultation with local governments and residents. As soon as an impending hazard reaches a predefined threshold in its disaster risk model, Start Network disburses Start Ready funds for enactment of the plans.

In this project in the Philippines, Start Network selected 11 municipalities highly exposed to typhoon risk and set up procedures to ensure the swift transfer of Start Ready funds to local NGOS should a typhoon arise. Start Ready also enabled these NGOs to help build communities’ typhoon resilience through preventative measures such as awareness-raising, hygiene promotion and evacuation plans. The project benefited from the Foundation’s financial support of the technical set-up in the Philippines as well as of the global funding mechanism.

This new, anticipatory approach to disaster aid faced its first test in July 2023, when Typhoon Doksuri hit three project municipalities in the province of Cagayan. This first activation allowed Start Network to test its cyclone system in the Philippines and adjust its response while meeting humanitarian needs both immediately before and after the storm, including through advance cash transfers to people deemed at greatest risk.