Enhancing frontline resilience: Transborder community-based flood early warning system in India and Nepal

Abstract

Recurring floods in the Terai belt of Nepal and eastern Uttar Pradesh in India cause extensive damage to the lives and livelihoods of the communities at risk and increase their vulnerability to external shocks. This is further aggravated due to the several evolving complex factors like unplanned development, marginalization, demographic growth, lack of access to essential services and growing uncertainty linked to changes in weather patterns. To address some of these concerns, Christian Aid along with partners is supporting a cross-border community-based early warning system which brings together technology and people together. Cross-border early warning system being implemented in India and Nepal is equipped with information and communication technology that helps to create a bridge between India and Nepal following a community-to-community resilience approach. The ICT solutions reduce resource overuse and save energy and time. The proposed paper tries to understand the process involved in institutionalizing the cross-border early warning systems and underline some of the essentials of the regional information sharing to implement a system involving multiple and varied stakeholders in the region. This would also explore the ways in which early warning systems could be implemented in the context of larger disaster risk management. The paper also provides insights into strengthening and scaling up such pilots for larger resilience building in multi-hazard zones.