fbf! photos on Flickr

The fourth global ‘dialogue platform’ for humanitarian forecast-based financing (FbF), supported by the German government and the German Red Cross (see drk.de/en/forecast-based-financing) was hosted by the IFRC in Geneva on 13–15 December 2016. At least ten national government ministries or weather services were represented and at least 15 Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies, as well as interested UN agencies, insurance companies and other stakeholders. The meeting heard a call from Germany’s Federal Foreign Office for other donors to jointly support the innovative humanitarian methodology over the next few years. IFRC Under Secretary General for Programmes and Operations, Garry Conille, who visited the platform on its third day, said “we are extremely excited about forecast-based financing” and looking at how to work it into the IFRC system. The twice-yearly dialogue platforms gather governments, meteorologists, climate scientists, humanitarians and donors as part of the German action plan for humanitarian adaptation to climate change. FbF is being piloted by the Red Cross Red Crescent with German support in Bangladesh, Mozambique and Peru (Federal Foreign Office), and in Togo and Uganda (Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development), with the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre providing technical advice. The methodology is also being piloted by the World Food Programme in Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Nepal, and together with its own Norwegian-supported ‘FoodSECuRE’ programme in the Philippines, in addition to (under FoodSECuRE) Guatemala, Niger, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Recent WFP research has shown that early humanitarian response could “trigger positive feedback loops that reduce humanitarian costs as well as disaster impacts,” the Geneva platform heard. (Photo credit: Greta Aubke/German Red Cross)

FBF-61 by SBC Youth