Anticipatory Action for Displacement at DRC - Annual Review 2025: Progress, Learning and Practice

Executive summary

In 2025, DRC’s work on anticipatory action for displacement focused on consolidation, learning and system-level positioning, at a moment when humanitarian needs continued to rise while resources became increasingly constrained. Against the backdrop of deepening conflict, fragility and funding pressure, 2025 was deliberately used as a bridging year: one that translated early operational experimentation into stronger evidence, clearer analytical frameworks and a more coherent approach to enable concerted action at scale from 2026 onwards.

Across fragile and climate-vulnerable contexts, DRC applies anticipatory action to reduce the humanitarian impacts of predictable shocks by linking displacement-centric early warning to timely, community-led action. In Somalia, DRC co-developed flood anticipatory action plans for internally displaced populations, combining forecast dissemination with support for safe evacuation and freedom of movement, the provision of rain kits and boats, and unconditional cash transfers to enable households to secure shelter and essential items ahead of flooding. In Venezuela, DRC strengthened hazard-based early warning and anticipatory action systems through hydrometeorological monitoring, climate data analysis, and collaboration with civil protection authorities, while supporting communities to develop anticipatory action plans with clear indicators, triggers, and preparedness measures.

Complementing these approaches, the Karamoja Strong Project in Kenya and Uganda integrated drought early warning with climate-smart livelihoods, water and livestock management, and peacebuilding efforts, demonstrating how anticipatory action can be embedded within broader resilience-building and conflict-sensitive programming.

Rather than launching new interventions in 2025, DRC concentrated on strengthening the foundations of anticipatory action for conflict-induced displacement. Early pilots implemented in South Sudan and Burkina Faso in 2024 were analysed, validated, and positioned as proofs of concept, generating concrete learning on what it takes to apply anticipatory action in highly volatile, conflict-affected settings. These experiences demonstrated that, when predictive analysis is combined with community insight and carefully sequenced programming, anticipatory action can r educe h arm, improve preparedness, and generate cost efficiencies. While results remain context-specific, they provide credible evidence that anticipatory action for displacement is both feasible and impactful beyond climate-related hazards.

At the analytical level, 2025 marked a step change in DRC’s evidence base for anticipatory action. Through expanded forecasting coverage and the completion of the Integrated Context Analysis (ICA) under the AHEAD project, DRC sharpened its understanding of where, when, and how anticipatory action can be responsibly applied in constrained environments. The AHEAD ICA reinforced that forecasting alone is insufficient: effective anticipatory action for conflict-induced displacement requires conflict sensitivity, protection-first approaches, community engagement, and a clear assessment of access, governance, and operational feasibility. This analysis now provides the backbone for more targeted, realistic, and scalable anticipatory action design. In parallel, DRC used 2025 to shape the global anticipatory action agenda, ensuring that displacement and conflict were more deliberately integrated into a field still largely oriented around climate-related hazards.

Through leadership roles at the Global Dialogue Platform, regional dialogue platforms and the launch of the IOM–DRC Global Working Group on Anticipatory Action for Displacement, DRC helped advance shared learning, coordination and advocacy across the sector.

For DRC 2025 represents a pivotal transition point in anticipatory action for displacement. It consolidated early operational experience, strengthened the analytical and ethical underpinnings of the approach, and positioned anticipatory action not as a standalone innovation, but as a system-level response to rising displacement risks in fragile settings.

Building on this groundwork, 2026 will mark a shift from preparation to delivery. Anticipatory action mechanisms are expected to go live, triggers to activate, and embedded monitoring, evaluation and learning systems to generate real-time evidence on what works, for whom, and under what conditions. This next phase will test not only the technical robustness of forecasts and triggers, but also the operational, ethical and financial viability of anticipatory action at scale in conflict-affected displacement contexts.

At the same time, DRC will deepen system-level engagement, using new evidence to influence policy, financing and practice. This includes operationalising the Global Anticipatory Action Pooled Fund, advancing research and operational partnerships, including with diaspora organisations and positioning anticipatory action for displacement within high-level global fora and strategic dialogues, including engagement with multilateral development actors.

Through this progression, DRC is moving beyond isolated pilots toward a more predictable, principled and scalable approach to anticipatory action for displacement, one grounded in evidence, shaped by communities, and embedded within the wider humanitarian and development system.