Early Warnings That Go Unheard

Communicating effectively about the potential impacts and risks of a hazardous event is a cornerstone of people-centered Anticipatory Action (AA) (1). It is the vital link between early warning information produced by meteorological services, scientists or community forecasters, and the capacity of people at risk to be prepared and take timely, meaningful action. Hence besides understanding disaster risk, detecting and forecasting hazards and carrying out preparedness and anticipatory measures, the communication and dissemination of warnings is one of the four vital pillars of an Early Warning System (EWS).

Early Warning Systems are designed to enable preparedness and anticipatory actions to protect lives, livelihoods, and assets of people at risk. In the context of the climate crisis, which is intensifying the frequency, severity, and unpredictability of climate-related hazards, the need for global coverage has become urgent. The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) projects that if current trends continue, the world will face around 560 disasters per year by 2030, a 40% increase from recent years, driven by the climate crisis and poor risk management. Another recent assessment by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) warned that about 1.1 billion more people will be exposed to heavy rains and an additional 900 million people to intense drought by 2050. Reason enough for United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, to launch the Early Warnings for All (EW4All) initiative in 2022 to ensure that everyone on Earth is protected from hazardous weather, water, or climate events through life-saving EWS (Early Warning Systems) by the end of 2027.

Fig. 1: Four Pillars of the EW4All initiative, WMO, 2022

The Global Status of Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems 2025  report unveils that 60% of all countries are now reporting the existence of a Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (MHEWS). Increased coverage and advances in disaster risk knowledge and impact-based forecasting capabilities also enable organizations like Welthungerhilfe (WHH) and its local partners to determine critical thresholds that herald extreme events and once crossed, put predetermined Anticipatory Action Plans (AAP) into motion and release pre-agreed funds for anticipatory actions aimed at reducing or preventing humanitarian impacts before they (fully) unfold. 

However, gaps persist beyond coverage alone. Evidence from fast-onset events like the devastating floods in Germany and Spain, as well as more recent events in Pakistan, indicates that despite considerable advances in early warning system capabilities, people and communities at risk often remain unprepared and uncertain about appropriate actions when hazards materialize.

Slow-onset hazards like droughts present similar challenges. In East Africa, repeated droughts have caused persistent crop failures, pasture depletion, and high livestock mortality, placing pastoral and agro-pastoral livelihoods under severe stress. Despite forecasts being able to predict precipitation trends and potential impacts weeks or months in advance, creating a window for Anticipatory Action, many communities and institutions remain insufficiently prepared.

Budget constraints, funding gaps, limited preparedness and response capacities, as well as weak coordination are often highlighted as key reasons for underperforming EWS. Yet, the critical role of risk and early warning communication, and the persistent gap between systems and the communities they are designed to serve, receives far less attention.

Regardless of how advanced forecasting technologies and civil-protection systems are, risk communication often remains technical, top-down, and disconnected from people’s realities. Messages are often developed without community input, issued in technical jargon or in languages unfamiliar to the target population, disseminated via channels few can access, or timed in ways that make them ineffective.

As a result, crucial warnings go misunderstood, ignored or mistrusted and not acted upon. This “disconnect” can undermine preparedness, anticipatory actions efforts even where civil protection systems and AAPs are in place, pre-financed and well-coordinated. (2)

Rethinking Risk Communication

To bridge this disconnect, institutions and humanitarian actors must embed risk communication through collaborative, inclusive and context-sensitive processprocesses. EWS need to be locally grounded and owned; this means involving communities as equal partners in designing communication content, selecting dissemination channels, and defining actions. They must be inclusive - reaching marginalized and high-risk groups. Information and advisories must be clear and accessible using language, formats, and dissemination channels adapted to local preferences, capacities and infrastructure. And, lastly, actionable by linking forecasts to concrete, pre-agreed actions.

In practice, translating these principles into action requires concrete tools and processes. WHH applied an Information Ecosystem Mapping (IEM), a participatory method to build a shared understanding of how early warning information flows, including who produces it, who disseminates it, who receives it, and who may be excluded. This work is part of the WHH Anticipatory Humanitarian Action Facility (WAHAFA) program, co-funded by the German Federal Foreign Office and running from May 2023 until April 2026. The program is led by WHH, with Malteser International (MI) and Africa Inland Church Health Ministries as co-implementers in Turkana County, Kenya. The IEM method was introduced and facilitated by the organisation Resurgence and its Kenyan partner Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI), building on their experience implementing the DARAJA project, where the method has been successfully applied to strengthen community-centered early warning communication.

The IEM workshops brought together early warning information producers and users from Kakuma, Lopur, Nanam, and Songot, wards[M(1] [JK2]  where MI and AIC Health Ministries are developing AAPs for droughts and floods. Attendees included members of the Ward Climate Change Committees (WCCCs), a community-elected group representing women, youth, elders, pastoralists, and people living with disabilities. Other participants included refugees, traditional seers (emurons) (3), local government officials, county representatives from meteorological and drought management authorities, community radio operators, and members of community-based organizations (CBOs).

At the conclusion of the workshops, participants identified key communication patterns and several major challenges. These included limited access to early warning information due to poor network coverage, a scarcity of communication devices, and restricted participation for certain community members, such as those unable to attend community meetings (barazas). Participants also highlighted fragmented and uncoordinated warning systems, with multiple sources issuing alerts without a unified voice or clear follow-up, leading to confusion.

Further barriers related to language, literacy and terminology were noted, as many messages are text-based or technically worded, rendering them unreadable or incomprehensible for some recipients. Finally, trust and cultural challenges emerged, including discrepancies between scientific forecasts and those of traditional seers, uncertain or overly generic predictions, and the limited localization of risk information. All of these factors undermine trust in and uptake of early warnings.

Fig. 2: Early Warning Information Ecosystem Map, November 2025

As a participatory learning and reflection exercise, participants engaged in a scenario-based role-play that helped simulate how information usually flows, who is involved in decision-making, and how people’s action and behaviors vary based on their realities.   The exercise helped clarify who communicates what, how information is received and interpreted, and which actions are taken, who is left out and where uncertainty and mistrust arise. It provided all participants, from producers and intermediaries to users of risk and early warning information, with an opportunity to share lived experiences, develop a shared understanding of existing gaps, and build a common vision for improvement.

Two weeks after the IEM exercise, co-design workshops were conducted to address the most pressing challenges identified during the mapping and role-plays. This time, the participants worked in small groups to tackle combinations of three key challenges: communication and access barriers, low trust in risk and early warning information, and fragmentation of the early warning system. Each group analyzed the current situation, envisioned an improved scenario, and proposed practical solutions. Through guided discussions, reflection, and sketching exercises, participants explored how solutions could be inclusive, context-specific, and actionable, ensuring that risk and early warning information reaches all segments of the community.

Moving forward, the focus liesays now on delivery of agreed risk-communication tools, message formats, and dissemination strategies. Beyond producing concrete outputs that are inclusive, contextually relevant, and locally owned, the IEM and co-design workshops already strengthened risk literacy, deepened understanding of forecasting and uncertainty, enhanced trust in and exchange with institutions, and reinforced community capacities to interpret warnings and act upon them.

Taking the Perspective of Communities Seriously

The impacts of hazardous events worldwide demonstrate that sophisticated EWS alone are not sufficient. Without people-centered communication and trust, early warnings often fail to trigger action. Risk communication should not be treated as a one-way process, and the dissemination of early warnings should not be considered a one-time, standardized activity delivered only once thresholds are crossed. There is much more that institutions and humanitarian actors need to consider. Having a Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) in place, or pre-drafted, generic messages delivered via megaphones or posters, will not enable informed dialogue, change risk behaviors, or motivate action.

Instead, risk communication must be fully embedded in risk management processes. It is cross-cutting across all four pillars of EWS and Anticipatory Action programming and must be ongoing at every stage - before, during, and after a hazardous event. A people-centered approach requires two-way communication that enables informed conversations between communities, practitioners, and decision-makers. Ideally, this develops into a three-way, participatory process, fostering multi-directional, cross-sectoral dialogue and creating new spaces for deeper engagement, co-production, and ultimately, motivating meaningful action and behavior change. (4)

Ultimately, risk and early warning communication must be co-produced, co-owned, inclusive, and actionable. This is what people-centeredness looks like in practice: taking the time to understand risks together, creating spaces for dialogue, and shaping decisions so that communities are not passive recipients of warnings but active participants at the center of EWS and Anticipatory Action. Only then can early warnings truly lead to action, safeguarding lives, livelihoods, and the resilience of entire communities.

Foonotes:

¹⁾ [1] ^{Anticipatory action is defined as acting ahead of a predicted hazardous event to prevent or reduce impacts on lives and livelihoods and humanitarian needs before they fully unfold. This works best when activities as well as triggers or decision-making rules are pre-agreed, and decisions are made to guarantee the fast release of pre-arranged funding. Grand Bargain Caucus on Scaling Up Anticipatory Action, published on https://reliefweb.int/ 20.12.2024}

^{2) GP 2025: Risk communication is essential for disaster risk reduction | Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction}

^{3) In Kenyan cultures, particularly among the Turkana and Iteso, an emuron (or emurwon) is a revered seer, prophet, and traditional healer who serves as the primary intermediary between the community and the divine. Becoming an emuron is not a choice or a skill that can be learned through apprenticeship; it is strictly a divine calling.}

^{4) Advancing disaster risk communications}