Paper details

Paper authors	Andrew Clarke
In panel on	From Reaction to Anticipation: How to Expand and Finance Anticipatory Humanitarian Action
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

The delivery of services and humanitarian programmes in fragile contexts, frequently face challenges to react to common but unpredictable crises that can stop programmes functioning; sometimes with delays in recognising emerging signs of crisis, long negotiations to repurpose budgets and also to re-establish expected outputs and outcomes.
Save the Children’s maternal and child health programme in southern Yemen, protects and provides essential primary care and community health services. From 2018 it was underpinned by a Crisis Modifier framework; conceived as a preparedness plan that went beyond traditional approaches to risk-management, designed to protect programmes and services from disruption due to crises.
The framework was designed to provide the means to anticipate unpredictable but likely crises, identify their emergence at an early stage with a targeted surveillance mechanism, and address them with an adequate mitigating, pre-agreed and pre-resourced response.
Whilst the surveillance mechanism identified potential crises that could have triggered activation, the Crisis Modifier was only eventually activated following the emergence of Covid-19 in 2020. The framework enabled the continuation of programme activities, services and a swift mitigating response.
This presentation will discuss the development of the Crisis Modifier framework across diverse programme stakeholders (funder, headquarters, country and local offices), evidence from implementation, and recommendations following evaluation.

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