Timor-Leste national anticipatory action financing mechanism

With improved forecasting technology, people can anticipate disasters and mitigate their impacts, protecting lives, livelihoods and key infrastructure. But it’s well established that early-warning systems need to be backed up by proper financing strategies that can disburse money to the right people in the right place at the right time.

Through UNEP under the Green Climate Fund’s project Enhancing early warning systems to build greater resilience to hydro-meteorological hazards in Timor-Leste, which the Timor-Leste Red Cross (CVTL) plays an important role in, the country is now benefitting from better forecasts and is trialing new forms of Anticipatory Action. As part of this initiative, the Climate Centre and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization published a new report (and accompanying policy brief) examining the potential of a special financing mechanism for Anticipatory Action in Timor-Leste – one that can reach the remote corners of the country where the most vulnerable people live. This report strongly recommends that the Timor-Leste's Civil Protection Authority (CPA) creates a new contingency fund to finance Anticipatory Action, which sits alongside but is separate from the CPA’s annual budget.