The FSNAU Early Warning Early Action Dashboard

In the lead up to the declaration of famine in Somalia in July 2011, FSNAU and FEWS NET have been sounding the alarm bell by providing early warning about the then unfolding food security crisis. These included specific Famine warning in March 2011. While early warning has been provided in advance of many past food crises, these early warnings were notable in terms of the timeliness, quantity and quality of the warning provided, and the use of a formalized Famine definition. However, these warnings were not heeded until famine was declared in July 2011 and an estimated 258 000 people died as a result of severe food insecurity and famine between October 2010 and April 2012.

As part of the lessons learned, the humanitarian community stated 'never again' and a consensus has been building since then for strengthening the linkage between early warning and early action. The main missing elements within the current early warning structure in Somalia are a dashboard and an accountability framework for triggering early action. To this end, the EW-EA database and dashboard serves as a platform for accessing data on a broad range of key early warning indicators to facilitate monitoring, prioritization and consensus building and coherent decision making. It continues being improved and refined based on the very helpful feedback we get from our users. To access the Early Warning Early Action Dashboard click here .

You can download a time series map generated by the Early Warning Dashboard, showing the alarm levels of different indicators here :

Early Warning Early Action Dashboard Time Series Progression (PDF, 3.6MB)