The Disaster Risk Management Team, Africa Region, AFTCS/SD
and
the Social Safety Nets Team, HDNSP are pleased to sponsor

Ulrich Hess, Chief of Risk Reduction and Disaster Mitigation Policy, WFP
Will Wiseman, Sr. Economist, AFTH3

Discussants:
Harold Alderman, Adviser, AFTHD
Trond Vedeld,  Sr. Social Development Specialist, AFTCS

The Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) was established in 2005 as a vehicle for delivering timely livelihood protection for 7.3 million chronically food insecure in Ethiopia. However, the transiently food insecure remain subject to the vagaries of the emergency relief system. Early and predictable assistance focused on preventing household asset depletion and increased levels of destitution for this segment of the population remains  central to addressing the problem of food insecurity and to ensuring the sustainability of the PSNP overall.

As a second phase to the World Food Program’s (WFP) Ethiopia drought insurance project, WFP and the World Bank have developed an index which allows users to quantify drought risk in a particular administrative unit in Ethiopia, building on a crop model developed by FAO and the local knowledge of the Government of Ethiopia. The index and related software can then be used to monitor this risk, to estimate the impact of shocks, and to guide disbursements for a scale-up in response.

The proposed approach aims to facilitate predictable disbursement of resources for less predictable problems, in effect allowing the immediate scale-up of PSNP activities in response to localized, intermediate or severe drought events. The presentation will focus on the design of the index and how it has been employed to estimate needs.

Presentation

"Incorporating Weather Indices into Early Warning Systems for Emergency Response and Social Protection: Ethiopia" (631kb pdf) by Will Wiseman and Ulrich Hess

More information can be found online at:
http://www.hoefsloot.com/index.php?title=LEAP_Development.

For more information about the Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction (GFDRR), pls visit:
http://www.gfdr.org/.