WHH Zimbabwe’s community-led anticipatory action

This case study belongs to a compendium of good practices and success stories in disaster risk reduction shared during the 2025 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GP2025). These stories reflect the real-world progress being made by governments, communities, and organizations around the world to reduce risk and build resilience.

In Zimbabwe’s Mbire District, where climate change is intensifying the severity and frequency of droughts, rural communities dependent on agriculture and livestock face growing threats to their livelihoods. In July 2024, Welthungerhilfe (WHH) Zimbabwe, in partnership with Farmers Community Trust Zimbabwe (FCTZ) and government agencies, piloted an innovative approach to anticipatory action.

At the heart of this approach was the People First Impact Method (P-FIM), a facilitation tool that fosters open, goal-free dialogue between communities and aid agencies. By removing pre-set agendas, P-FIM allowed local voices to define priorities based on lived realities. In Mbire, communities identified droughts and floods as their primary risks, with an urgent call for improved water management as a drought mitigation measure.

Drawing on these community insights, WHH’s Anticipatory Humanitarian Action Facility (WAHAFA) co-developed an anticipatory action plan alongside the community. When drought triggers were reached in mid-2024, FCTZ and WHH, supported by funding from the German Federal Foreign Office, implemented actions that communities had helped design: supplementary livestock feeding and the construction of a piped water scheme.

The process became a model for true local ownership. Before the contracted supplier arrived, community members had already excavated 1.5 kilometers of trenches—up to 70 centimeters deep—for the water pipes, accelerating construction. Their explanation was simple: the project addressed a priority they had identified, so they considered it “theirs.”

The P-FIM approach also transformed relationships between communities, NGOs, and government stakeholders. It ensured that external support complemented rather than replaced local efforts. The result was more than infrastructure—it was a foundation for ongoing collaboration and accountability. WHH is now applying P-FIM in other contexts.

Source: Submitted via the GP2025 Share Your Success Story survey