Despite its proven benefits—from protecting vulnerable communities from the impacts of shocks to reducing humanitarian costs—Anticipatory Action (AA) is underutilized and severely underfunded, receiving only a small fraction of crisis financing. Currently, AA funding is primarily supported through humanitarian grants and by a relatively small group of humanitarian donors. Expanding and better combining the range of financing sources is essential to fully leverage anticipatory action and enhance both scalability and long-term sustainability.

Momentum is building as AA increasingly becomes a shared priority across humanitarian, development, and climate sectors in global and regional policy processes (e.g. Humanitarian Reset, Belem Declaration, Grand Bargain, Geneva Call for Disaster Risk Reduction, and Regional Roadmaps by CEPREDENAC, IGAD/IPAC, ASEAN). Governments are exploring budgeting for AA. Humanitarian actors are increasingly looking into the use of innovative and blended financial solutions to expand coverage provided by AA, and International Financial Institutions are playing a growing role by embedding AA into resilience and climate programming.

This interactive session will explore how to leverage the broad spectrum of financing instruments and share tangible tools for securing and scaling up AA funding across three critical pathways: National ownership, climate/development financing, and innovative (market-based) mechanisms. Through dynamic discussions and peer exchange, participants will identify opportunities to stretch every dollar (regardless of its source), leverage humanitarian and development budgets, scale up approaches that provide value for money, and unlock innovative solutions for growth, sustainability, and impact.