Resilience from within: How anticipatory action can support communities to absorb, adapt and recover from climate- and conflict-driven crises

As humanitarian needs rise and donor funding shrinks, the sector faces a pivotal crossroads over how to proceed. These challenges have been a catalyst for the ‘humanitarian reset’, spearheaded by UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher, that calls for smarter, earlier action that empowers local communities.

In this context, anticipatory action could be more than a timely intervention; it could enhance community resilience: the ability to resist, absorb, adapt to, and recover from hazards.

Formal evidence on the impact of anticipatory action on resilience is limited but growing. A rapid evidence assessment commissioned by Start Network found that anticipatory action not only reduces immediate suffering but also lays the foundation for longer-term resilience. [^6]: Respondents in multiple studies reported that AA had supported their resilience in managing future shocks, for example through training, awareness-raising, or house repairs. The same assessment also noted encouraging impacts on community relations, with early evidence suggesting that anticipatory action can reduce violence, [^11] strengthen peace efforts, and foster social inclusion.

Research by Resilience Solutions on the longer-term impacts of Start Fund’s anticipatory action builds on this evidence. Findings suggest that anticipatory action has the potential to enhance resilience, particularly when rooted in existing community social structures. It can do this through strengthening social cohesion, embedding local leadership and empowering marginalised voices. Anticipatory action, unlike traditional humanitarian responses that react to crises, is well suited to supporting meaningful community engagement through its pre-crisis window that can be leveraged to plan actions that support and build upon the communities pre-existing absorption and adaptive capacity:

• Absorption capacities: Coping with immediate impacts of a hazard through anticipation.
• Adaptive capacities: Adjusting to longer-term risks through adapting and transforming.

Three ways anticipatory action can support community resilience:

1. Strengthening social cohesion

Ahead of Nigeria’s 2023 general elections, Oxfam and two local partners - the Centre for the Advocacy of Justice and Rights (CAJR) and the Centre for Human Rights and Social Advancement (CEFSAN)- accessed Start Fund (Alert 676: Anticipation of Electoral Tensions) to mitigate the risk of electoral violence. The project strengthened community-based Early Warning and Early Response (EWER) systems and promoted mutual understanding across the community.

Youth peace ambassadors and conflict monitors were trained to identify and report early signs of escalating tensions. Forums held by youth ambassadors provided safe spaces for youth, women, and marginalised groups to voice concerns and engage in problem-solving. Public messaging, broadcast in five local languages, promoted unity and tolerance reaching more than 29,000 people.

While the initiative primarily focused on absorptive capacity – reducing the immediate risks of violence - it also lay the groundwork for adaptive capacities by fostering trust and relationships between groups. Although more research is needed into how long-lasting the relationship building between groups was, this case suggests that interventions designed to help communities absorb shocks may also have the ability to build resilience against future election-related challenges.

2. Embedding risk considerations into local governance

After forecasting riverbank erosion in Bangladesh's Sirajganj District, Manob Mukti Sangstha (MMS) accessed Start Fund Bangladesh (Alert B047: Riverbank Erosion) to deliver anticipatory action. The intervention supported absorption capacities by setting up real-time erosion monitoring, distributing cash assistance to at-risk families, and pre-positioning essential hygiene and shelter supplies. MMS worked closely with local government authorities to identify the vulnerable households as well as to secure long-term relocation sites outside erosion zones.

This initiative strengthened absorptive capacities while also advancing adaptive capacity by integrating local leadership, risk-informed planning and land use decision making into governance. As one project coordinator explained:

The cash grants and advocacy efforts enabled affected communities to prepare better and reduce losses, including engaging with local authorities for future preparedness. The anticipatory action helped strengthen longer-term resilience by improving early warning systems, supporting safe relocation, and enhancing risk awareness.

Although long-term benefits remain uncertain, the project improved the governance systems' ability to anticipate, prepare for, and manage risks.

3. Empowering marginalised voices

Ahead of drought in Angola’s Huila Province, People in Need and World Vision accessed Start Fund (Alert 822: Food Insecurity) to restore water points and pre-position hygiene kits within communities. The project also empowered marginalised voices by establishing 18 women-led water management committees to manage water distribution and hygiene messaging. Women—often primary caregivers—understood family needs most acutely and therefore ensured equitable water access and tailored messages specifically for families.

This approach supported absorptive capacities by ensuring immediate water access, while also advancing adaptive capacities by embedding women’s leadership in governance. According to a project coordinator:

The training of water management committees increases community autonomy in water point maintenance and encourages good hygiene practices. Promoting women’s inclusion in water management and local leadership supports social sustainability and longer-term resilience to future droughts.

The long-term durability of these gains, however, remains unclear. Sustained evaluation is needed to understand whether women continue to hold leadership roles and whether inclusive governance persists beyond this single intervention.

Limitations in the role anticipatory action plays in community resilience

While anticipatory action holds significant promise for strengthening community resilience, its role remains only partially understood. In the case of Start Fund anticipatory actions, the short 45- or 60-day implementation window limits the depth of community engagement and the scale of change that can realistically be achieved. Without continued follow-up or integration with broader disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate adaptation initiatives, the benefits risk fading once the immediate hazard has passed.

A second challenge is the lack of evidence on how long the benefits of anticipatory actions last after interventions end. To ensure they contribute meaningfully to resilience, more sustained monitoring and learning are required after implementation. This includes embedding quantitative tracking of resilience outcomes into programme design, as well as examining more rigorously how anticipatory action affects community relations.

A major barrier to such long-term studies is the lack of funding for evaluations that extend beyond the immediate aftermath of a crisis. Donors can play a critical role in addressing this gap by providing multi-year, flexible funding to enable deeper evidence generation. In the long term, such investments are likely to yield cost savings by demonstrating and scaling the effectiveness of anticipatory action.

Conclusion

Resilient communities are the frontline defence against the growing pressures of climate- and conflict-driven crises. As the gap between humanitarian needs and available funding widens, every humanitarian intervention must do more to not only address immediate risks but also support the resilience within communities, to resist, absorb, adapt to, and recover from hazards.

Anticipatory action stands out from traditional humanitarian response because it acts before crises hit. By engaging communities in that critical pre-crisis window, it has demonstrated the potential to reinforce community resilience. Anticipatory action has leveraged trusted networks in Nigeria that supported the community to understand one another and be tolerant ahead of an election, embedded land-use planning and local leadership in Bangladesh’s local governance to ensure decision-making was based on flood risk, and empowered marginalised groups in Angola ahead of drought to support equitable access to water.

Anticipatory action has demonstrated the potential to strengthen resilience by investing in people, relationships, and the social systems that communities already trust and rely on and that already exist within them. It should be seen as a strategic entry point that enables humanitarian action to be designed with and by communities and that reinforce long-lasting resilience based on the premises of trust, inclusion and empowerment.

Although anticipatory action shows promise, the sector needs to evidence impacts on community relationships and learn to design interventions that foster long-term resilience. Humanitarian actors can contribute by conducting longitudinal evaluations that track resilience outcomes over time and by researching impacts on community relations, cohesion, inclusion, and governance in the years following interventions. Donors can support this effort by providing long-term, flexible, multi-year funding earmarked for longitudinal research and evaluation.