Anticipatory action reached 9.6 million people in 2025
By the Anticipation Hub
(This story appeared first on the website of the Anticipation Hub yesterday. It has been slightly here for length.)
The Anticipation Hub’s fourth annual overview of anticipatory action shows that this approach continued to expand in 2025, reaching 9.6 million people ahead of forecast hazards during the year.
Anticipatory action frameworks were activated 146 times in 54 countries during the year, with almost 120 million US dollars released to support those actions, according to Anticipatory Action in 2025: A Global Overview. These activations reached 9.6 million people, with many more people being covered by early warnings.
The report draws on data provided by the organizations that implement this approach. This provides evidence that anticipatory action continued to increase in scale during 2025.
Cash and voucher assistance
A key indicator for this growth is the rise in the number of active frameworks, the pre-agreed arrangements that enable humanitarians to act before a hazard strikes.
These increased by 70 per cent, from 154 in 2024 to 262 in 2025. The majority of these are for floods, droughts and tropical storms, with (in order of frequency) Bangladesh, the Philippines, Nepal, Guatemala and Pakistan having the highest number of frameworks for different hazards.
For the first time the report tracks how anticipatory action is being funded, showing how donors are allocating both “fuel funding” – the resources used to support the actions taken ahead of a hazard – and “build funding”, which is used to develop the systems and infrastructure needed.
Among the donors who provided data, Germany and the European Union emerged as the largest contributors to date.
Other highlights in the report show that:
*Cash and voucher assistance, early warnings and health-related activities were the types of actions most frequently delivered.
*A further 205 frameworks were being developed during 2025 in 71 countries.
*Fifty-seven countries are working on institutionalizing anticipatory action and incorporating it in their disaster risk management systems.
‘Tremendous progress’
Nikolas Scherer, joint head of the Anticipation Hub and one of the report’s authors, noted: “The figures in this report show that anticipatory action is no longer a small-scale innovation. In 2025, it helped millions of people to act before the impacts of hazards fully unfolded.
“It is also very encouraging to see more countries working on institutionalizing anticipatory action.”
“Anticipatory action is no longer a niche innovation,” said IFRC Secretary General Jagan Chapagain during the launch event. The challenge now is scaling the systems and financing the local capacities needed to act before disasters become crises.”
“The figures show tremendous progress,” added Stefanie Lux, joint head of the Anticipation Hub. “For me, what’s important is that behind each number is a family who was able to take actions that protected themselves and their livelihoods from the worst impacts of impending extreme events.”
The report was supported financially by Germany’s Federal Foreign Office and was published in partnership with FAO, the German Red Cross, the IFRC, OCHA, the Climate Centre, the Start Network, WFP and WHH.
Anticipatory Action in 2025: A Global Overview was launched yesterday at the IFRC Geneva offices. (Photo: IFRC)