A milestone in the Americas: El Salvador embeds anticipatory action within its national contingency plan for hydroclimatic events

For years, a central challenge for anticipatory action in Latin America and the Caribbean has been shifting from donor-funded humanitarian pilot projects to nationally owned, legally embedded operational frameworks. El Salvador recently provided a model for what this transition looks like in practice.

In June 2026, the Directorate of Civil Protection of El Salvador published its National Contingency Plan for Hydroclimatic Events. By doing so, El Salvador became the first country in the Americas to formally embed anticipatory action within a national contingency plan, with thresholds defined, triggers formalized and time windows structured into the plan's operational architecture.

Setting out the pillars of anticipatory action

El Salvador’s National Contingency Plan for Hydroclimatic Events defines:

• thresholds as the values that indicate the need for anticipatory action
• triggers as conditions that automatically activate pre-agreed anticipatory measures
• time windows as the interval between detecting a threat and its impact.

These concepts are not attached as guidelines or annexes, but embedded within the plan’s early action phases, with activations driven by probabilistic forecasts and pre-defined thresholds at defined lead times before a hydroclimatic event causes harm.

The interagency coordination structure is equally significant. An actor matrix maps out the various responsibilities across the monitoring, preparedness, pre-activation and response phases. This establishes the roles of the government ministries responsible for agriculture, civil protection, the environment and health, alongside humanitarian partners including FAO , Oxfam , the Salvadorean Red Cross Society , UNICEF and WFP .

The plan also formally adopts the ‘no regret’ principle, establishing that anticipatory measures are justified even when a forecast event does not materialize at the expected severity or spatial extent. This provides institutional cover for decisions to activate made under uncertainty – a critical governance gap that many national frameworks in the region have yet to address.

While the plan does not yet contemplate direct investment from state budgetary resources, it strengthens the coordination of humanitarian funding, sets clear criteria for the implementation of anticipatory action, and opens the door to future national frameworks beyond hydrometeorological hazards. As such, it lays the groundwork for a broader governance architecture for anticipatory action in El Salvador.

“El Salvador has made considerable progress in implementing the National Action Plan for the Implementation of the National Early Warning System and Anticipatory Actions, through the definition of thresholds and triggers for hydroclimatic events, which have already been incorporated into planning for the management of adverse events. However, it remains essential to continue developing thresholds and triggers for the threat of volcanic ashfall, as well as standardized early actions for that threat." -Luis Alonso Amaya, Director-general of civil protection, disaster prevention and mitigation, El Salvador

This institutionalization process built on several years of groundwork. In 2025, the government of El Salvador established a Special Commission for Development, Anticipatory Action, and Early Warning Systems under the coordination of the Directorate of Civil Protection. It also convened the country’s 1st National Dialogue Platform on Anticipatory Action , laying the inter-institutional foundations needed for a coordinated national framework. And in May 2026, the Salvadoran Red Cross Society carried out its first anticipatory action activation , ahead of a forecast drought. This took place alongside collective action, using funds from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund , to validate the operational readiness of frameworks ahead of the publication of the national contingency plan.

"The country's next step is to establish the regulatory framework for the national early warning system, which will develop the pillars of the EW4All [Early Warnings for All] initiative through the strategies defined in the National Action Plan for the Implementation of the National Early Warning System and Anticipatory Actions: strengthening the knowledge base for the implementation of early actions; technological development for observation, monitoring and forecasting that enables threats to be detected in time and generates timely, impact-based forecasts; and strengthening institutional capacities for the implementation of early actions.” -Luis Alonso Amaya, Director-general of civil protection, disaster prevention and mitigation, El Salvador