From the Community Toolbox: Scenario Planning for Extreme Climate Events and Amalima Loko’s Experience Scenario Planning for El Niño
By: Mackson Maphosa, CLA Lead, Amalima Loko and Elisa Dickey, Adaptive Management Specialist, IDEAL
As examples of harvest seasons being upended by flooding or droughts become more frequent, agriculture and food security activities are increasingly challenged to understand and prepare for responding to shocks and adapting interventions accordingly. With the possibility of a failed rain season or a damaged harvest looming on the horizon, activities must rely on data to predict possible disruptions and create a plan for how interventions would be adjusted depending on the nature and severity of the disruption.
Are there risks or anticipated changes in your activity’s operating environment that are likely to occur during implementation? Do you see ways in which these risks pose a threat to your activity, but you are unsure of how to plan for them? You may be interested in how the Amalima Loko resilience food security activity (RFSA), supported by USAID/BHA and implemented by Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA) in Zimbabwe, has recently engaged in a scenario planning process ahead of potential El Niño-related disruptions.
What Led Amalima Loko to Start Its Scenario Planning Exercise?
In the spring and early summer of 2023, Amalima Loko learned that the World Meteorological Organization was tracking the formation of El Niño conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean that could trigger droughts in southern Africa. At that time, El Niño conditions were still mild and limited to above-normal sea-surface temperatures. However, Amalima Loko leadership learned that regional climate forum predictions placed the likelihood of a strong El Nino (and a severe associated drought) at 56%.
How Did Amalima Loko Use This Knowledge?
In response, the activity started by trying to create a common understanding among the staff of El Niño and the risks it posed. Program management and technical leads came together to review the available information on current El Nino predictions, along with data on the effects of previous El Niño phenomena on food security, nutrition, and health in the region.
Once a common understanding of the risks was established, staff participated in a moderated discussion to identify the likely scenarios for which they could prepare and the impact each scenario would have on the activity. Guiding questions for this discussion included:
- What are the potential effects of El Niño on agriculture, livelihoods, health & nutrition, and natural resources management in the program area?
- What is the range of possibilities of these possible El Niño effects on the food security outlook in communities in the program area?
- What are the implications to activity outcomes if no program adaptations are done?
In response, program leadership selected two possible scenarios for which to plan:
- Scenario 1: Low severity of El Niño Effects, characterized by a dry spell like what is usually experienced within this region and in line with the dry conditions for which the activity routinely works with communities to mitigate and prepare.
- Scenario 2: Moderate to High Severity of El Niño Effects, characterized by very high temperatures, the possibility of significantly delayed rainfall, and low overall rain.
How Has Amalima Loko Prepared for These Two Scenarios?
The Amalima Loko team reviewed all its interventions to understand how they would be impacted by each scenario and what adaptations would be required. For the first (low severity) scenario, the technical team determined that the planned interventions were largely appropriate for mitigating and responding to a routine dry spell, and no major changes to program activities were required. Instead, the team highlighted specific aspects of the existing activity, including growth monitoring and nutritional screening surveillance, irrigation scheme promotion for horticulture production, and establishment of new water sources, that could be prioritized and scaled in response to El Niño-created dry conditions.
For the second scenario, in which a significant drought was anticipated, program staff identified multiple ways activity interventions would be disrupted. For instance, the activity anticipated problems with irrigation schemes due to water table recession, stress on both human and livestock water sources, strain on village savings and loans funds and other social safety net schemes due to surges in requests, decreases in the effectiveness of stunting prevention efforts due to sharing of blanket supplementary feeding program rations among household members, and increased human/wildlife conflict. Due to these and other identified challenges, the Amalima Loko team outlined potential activity adaptations required to respond to the drought in the second scenario. These adaptations included adding food distribution rations to decrease the risk of sharing rations meant for children under five with other household members, supporting livestock farmers’ drought preparations such as purchasing supplementary feed, selling livestock to supplement household income, and investing in more drought-tolerant livestock (goats and chickens), and expanding the reach of WASH campaigns to a wider range of communities given the anticipated increase in water-scarce communities within the activity’s geographic area.
Has Either Scenario Been Activated Since its Development?
Based on evolving meteorological conditions, since the development of the two scenarios, Amalima Loko has decided to activate scenario two for moderate to high severity of El Niño effects by beginning to roll out the activity adaptations described above. While it is too early to evaluate the effectiveness of these adaptations, the team is continuing to monitor the context and make additional adaptations as needed.
Amalima Loko’s Scenario Planning Tool
In carrying out this scenario planning exercise, Amalima Loko used a tracker in which team members documented — for each scenario — the anticipated El Niño conditions, the potential effect of these conditions on food security outcomes, the likelihood of occurrence, the potential severity of effects on households, the implications of these conditions on activity effectiveness, and the need for focusing on each particular issue.
To start using it, click here to download a blank version of this tool.
Additional Resources
Are you interested in conducting scenario planning on your activity but don’t know where to start? Check out IDEAL’s Scenario Planning Course on Kaya. This course will guide you through the process of identifying potential risks and changes in your operating environment, developing scenarios for these changes, and understanding how your interventions can be adapted in each chosen scenario.
Do you have a scenario planning tool to share with the FSN Network community? We love spreadsheets and Word docs, etc.! Send them to jhaddle@savechildren.org or info@fsnnetwork.org.
Check out additional articles in the From the Community Toolbox series:
- From the Community Toolbox: A Practical Approach to Promoting Psychological Safety in Teams
- From the Community Toolbox: Making the Jump from a Lesson Learned to Adapting an Activity
- From the Community Toolbox: Adaptive Management Tracking Tool
- From the Community Toolbox: Two Practical Tools for Organizing and Tracking Learning Processes
- From the Community Toolbox: An Audience-Friendly, Visual Approach to Collaborative Learning and Adapting (CLA)
