Humanitarian needs are rising as communities, especially the most at-risk population groups, are repeatedly affected by more frequent, severe and unpredictable climate-related hazards. Despite growing evidence on climate-related risks and impacts, and on the socio-economic drivers of vulnerability and exposure patterns, humanitarian decisions are still often taken with limited use of risk information, reducing our ability to anticipate impacts, protect the most vulnerable and minimise losses. Making humanitarian action genuinely risk-informed is therefore essential to ensure that responses are timely, targeted, inclusive and climate-resilient, while also addressing the underlying risk factors that can compound and trigger acute and protracted crises.

Robust, disaggregated data on hazardous events, losses and damages, and other disaster impacts – including human effects such as displacement, mortality and morbidity – disaggregated by sex, age, disability, livelihood group, hazard type and geography, are fundamental to understanding who is most affected, how and why. Historical impact information, and tracking of ongoing events, is a cornerstone of risk knowledge, enabling hotspot identification, impact-based forecasting, calibration of triggers, vulnerability and exposure analysis, and prioritisation of anticipatory and preparedness actions.

This session will take stock of ongoing efforts to strengthen countries’ disaster data ecosystems and available tools, e.g. DELTA Resilience, that support systematic collection, analysis and application of disaster impact data, and hence enable risk-informed humanitarian action, in particular anticipatory action. It will also highlight ongoing collaborations in the UN system, e.g. UNDRR, UNDP and WMO, and with the Red Cross Climate Centre, including work on guidance to support the use of losses and damages data to:

• Design impact-based triggers for anticipatory action
• Strengthen impact-based forecasting and risk models
• Identify marginalised and high-risk groups for targeted support
• Inform nature-based and green recovery options

Speakers will share practical use cases demonstrating how impact data directly support risk-informed preparedness, impact-based warning, anticipatory and early action, and inclusive humanitarian and recovery interventions and the opportunities to strengthen data application through DELTA -enabled institutionalized disaster tracking systems.

Expected Outcomes

• Raise awareness on how hazardous events and losses and damage data underpin risk-informed, inclusive and climate-resilient humanitarian action.
• Demonstrate available tools and databases to enable production and use of disaggregated impact data to identify and support the most at-risk population groups and geographic hotspots.
• Show how historical impact data can be used to calibrate operational triggers, strengthen impact-based forecasting and inform anticipatory action.
• Identify opportunities and challenges in using impact data for preparedness, response, recovery readiness and nature-based solutions.