In 2020, a SPARC research programme used the advance warnings of a possible drought in Somalia to set up a panel of farmers and pastoralists to analyse how crisis-affected people take their own anticipatory action. The outcomes of this study offer a way of understanding how support can best be offered as crises threaten, and what are the windows of opportunity for doing so.

This report looks at the timing of the humanitarian sector's strategies, and at the rationale behind people’s anticipatory strategies earlier in the crisis trajectory in three sites in Somalia: Somaliland, Puntland and the Middle Shabelle Region in the south. It is not an analysis of any anticipatory projects implemented in the country.

Authors: Simon Levine, Lena Weingartner, Alex Humphrey, Muzzamil Abdi Sheikh