In December 2024 we visited Kathmandu to meet with GSMA Innovation Fund grantee partners and a range of stakeholders to discuss the powerful role of technology in anticipatory action and early warning systems (EWS).
The partnership between the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and the GSMA Mobile for Humanitarian (M4H) Innovation programme leverages the power of digital technology to solve humanitarian challenges. We do this through investing in innovation via a dedicated fund, catalysing public-private partnerships that deliver digital innovations, publishing research that informs the future of digital humanitarian response and advocating for enabling policy environments for digital humanitarian solutions.
Local innovators delivering anticipatory cash assistance
M4H has invested in two innovative solutions in Nepal through the GSMA Innovation Fund for Anticipatory Humanitarian Action and we had the pleasure of spending a day with each of the Naxa and Rumsan teams.
Anticipatory action refers to actions taken to reduce the humanitarian impacts of a forecast hazard before it occurs, or before its most acute impacts are felt. The decision to act is based on a forecast, or collective risk analysis, of when, where and how the event will unfold.1
Rumsan is a blockchain company focused on social impact. They are using their Rahat platform to enable anticipatory action of humanitarian organisations. Their pilot targets over 5000 recipients in a flood prone area with early warning signs and access to humanitarian cash assistance before flooding. They are partnering with humanitarian agencies Mercy Corps and the Danish Red Cross to deliver their innovative solution.
Naxa’s DASTAA platform is an integrated assessment tool that provides the necessary evidence to support anticipatory action decision making. Their project intervention in Kanchanpur district, which included collection of household disaster risk information, and the use of technology for dissemination of early warning information, contributed to zero casualties during an extreme rainfall event.
The transition of humanitarian assistance to cash and voucher assistance, due to its benefits in efficiency, dignity and donor accountability has also been a long sought after shift in humanitarian action. Mobile technology can play an important role in delivery of this type of humanitarian assistance, reaching communities quickly and in hard-to-reach areas. It was great to see these local Nepali innovators bringing to reality the use of anticipatory cash and voucher assistance by leveraging digital technologies.
Nepal’s early warning system
Supported by the British Embassy in Kathmandu, we met with key government agencies, including the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) and the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) to discuss Nepal’s ongoing early warning efforts – including their partnerships with local mobile network operators (MNOs) to send location-based SMS before floods happen.
Meeting with the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority
While SMS is valuable, it is manually intensive and can be impacted by delays and network congestion. We discussed the potential of cell broadcast technology, a solution that can instantly reach millions, without network congestion or delays. Globally, cell broadcast is proving effective for real-time early warnings, and in 2023, M4H published a report highlighting its application in EWS.
MNOs are crucial partners in the development and implementation of EWS. The M4H programme, which works at the intersection of the mobile industry and the humanitarian sector, has taken a leadership role in the Early Warnings for All Initiative that has ambition, set out by the UN Secretary General, for everyone in the world to be protected by an EWS. You can learn more about our activities as part of the EW4All initiative in this report.
We look forward to continuing to work with our partners in Nepal to support further development of early warning systems and anticipatory humanitarian action.
- 1. IFRC, World Disasters Report 2020. ↩︎
