“The Locals will Know”: The Role of Local Actors and Local Knowledge in Trigger Development for Anticipatory Action

Anticipatory (Humanitarian) Action (AA) seeks to mitigate the humanitarian impact of predictable extreme events by implementing humanitarian measures before the impact fully materializes. Despite growing interest in AA, trigger development – where accurate thresholds or rules for decision-making for early action are identified based on forecasts and predictive analysis – remains a key challenge. Therefore, many current AA frameworks are still dominated by international actors, who rely heavily on quantitative data and scientific forecasting models, which require considerable resources and technical expertise to be developed and monitored. These trigger models often come at the expense of incorporating local insights and provide few entry points for small and medium-sized organizations. Similarly, existing literature largely highlights the technical complexity of creating reliable trigger models, often sidelining the valuable input that local actors – those closest to the communities at risk – can provide. Against this background, the paper seeks to provide recommendations for the systematic integration of local actors and local knowledge into the process of trigger development, thus lowering technical entry barriers for joint engagement in AA by German humanitarian NGOs and their local partners.