Fiji will pilot the Project for Anticipatory Action for Tropical Cyclones funded under the Central Emergency Response Funds.

This has been approved by the cabinet.

The Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Women, and the National Disaster Management Office will be coordinating the pilot project with the World Food Programme and other relevant UN agencies.

Anticipatory Action (AA) refers to actions triggered before a crisis to mitigate the worst effects of the crisis, or even avoid crisis altogether.

AA is a new global concept used in humanitarian aid, climate change, disaster, and climate finance.

Fiji is the first country in the Pacific to pilot AA related to tropical cyclones.

AA builds on existing Disaster Risk Reduction frameworks that enable actions and financing to be triggered on forecast of impending hazard rather than reacting to its impact.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Centre for Humanitarian Data has been working closely with NDMO and Fiji Meteorological Services to design the triggers.

Each time RSMC Nadi produces a tropical cyclone track forecast, it will be evaluated to determine whether the trigger conditions have been met.

Upon readiness triggers, CERF funds will be immediately disbursed to UN agencies which can only spend up to 15% of the allocation.

The rest can be spent once the activation trigger is activated.