Scaling Up Anticipatory Action in Latin America and the Caribbean

INTRODUCTION

Latin America and the Caribbean is a region highly vulnerable to disasters, with more than 1,500 adverse events recorded between 2000 and 2022, affecting 190 million people. Its high exposure and deeply rooted, interrelated risk factors have been clearly demonstrated by droughts linked to the El Nino cycle and hurricanes such as Beryl, the earliest recorded Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic's history.

In a context of increasingly unstable weather patterns and more frequent extreme climate events, floods and droughts have become the most common and harmful occurrences. Their intensity and frequency have grown, as illustrated by Hurricanes Eta and Iota in 2020, as well as the droughts associated with the 2015-2016 El Nino cycle. These events, along with other hazards such as wildfires, have severely impacted local communities.

The impact has been significant: Hurricanes Eta and Iota caused more than USD 7 billion in losses and affected over 8 million people. According to ODI/Start Network (2019), 20% of current crises are highly predictable, and half of them are predictable to some extent-yet most responses remain reactive.

In the face of growing humanitarian needs and limited resources, itis crucial to adopt a more proactive risk management approach. Research shows that each dollar invested in anticipatory action can generate up to seven dollars in return for farming families, with benefits for food security and resilience, leading to stronger, better-prepared communities.