How do we ensure that the humanitarian use of forecasts is robust?

Forecast-based action within the humanitarian community supports at-risk communities when a forecast indicates a potentially imminent disaster. Within the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement the development of an Early Action Protocol enables access to pre-agreed funds and avoids indecision when faced with an uncertain forecast. To ensure value for money, this protocol must demonstrate that the forecast is good enough for the decisions being made. But how can we be confident that forecasts are good enough if we don’t have any observations? How do we evaluate an impact-based forecast? And how do we communicate these limitations to all stakeholders? In this talk I will discuss some of the challenges we have faced, and some solutions.