Country: Nepal Source: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Please refer to the attached file. SUMMARY OF THE SIMPLIFIED EARLY ACTION PROTOCOL The IFRC Disaster Response Emergency Fund (DREF) allocated CHF 199, 964 for the implementation of anticipatory actions to reduce and mitigate the impact of flood in Karnali, Babai, and West Rapti rivers, covering selected municipalities in Kailali and Bardiya districts, Nepal. The simplified Early Action Protocol (sEAP) allocated CHF 71, 485 for Readiness, CHF 58, 229 for pre-positioning stock and CHF 70, 250 for Early Action. The readiness and pre-positioning stockrelated activities ensured the Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS) was prepared to implement timely and effective implementation of early actions if the established trigger thresholds were reached during the sEAP timeframe. The early actions and activities planned for 2024 and 2025 were pre-agreed with and oriented to the National Society and are described in the sEAP summary. This report summarizes the annual readiness and prepositioning activities done during June 2024 to June 2026. The sEAP for floods was approved in June 2024, just before the beginning of Nepal’s monsoon season. The sEAP was funded by IFRC’s DREF, where the Danish Red Cross, Finnish Red Cross and the IFRC Red Cross Climate Centre also provided technical engagement. The programme started in June 2024 and was implemented for two years (until June 2026), covering 22 high flood-risk communities in 12 municipalities in the Banke, Bardiya, and Kailali districts across the West Rapti, Babai, and Karnali River basins, respectively. Being the first approved early action protocol of NRCS, the sEAP is focused on safeguarding lives, household items, and livestock, while also ensuring access to safe water and hygiene. Key activities include early warning dissemination, evacuation to safer shelters, and advance preparedness measures carried out in collaboration with local governments. Following its approval, NRCS conducted an orientation for national headquarters staff, volunteers, and staff from the targeted district chapters, with active participation from all 12 targeted local authorities. Based on this orientation, municipalities worked with district chapters to jointly select the communities for sEAP interventions and endorse the implementation of readiness, pre-positioning, and early action activities in the agreed locations. The NRCS engaged in the overall implementation of field activities, while the IFRC Country Delegation team provided operational and financial support to implement sEAP for floods in western Nepal. Under the shared leadership modality, the Danish Red Cross provided technical support to NRCS for the implementation on behalf of IFRC. During the implementation period of the sEAP from June 2024 to June 2026, the NRCS, with the support of IFRC, Danish Red Cross, Finnish Red Cross, and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, implemented readiness and early action activities under the sEAP for Floods in the targeted flood-prone areas. The operation focused on strengthening forecast-based preparedness, early warning, pre-positioning, community readiness, coordination, and timely early action. During the initial reporting period from June to December 2024, most of the planned readiness activities were completed, although some activities remained pending because the sEAP plan was approved just one month before the monsoon started, and the time available to start readiness activities was short. A major achievement was the establishment of the sEAP Advisory Team at NRCS Headquarters, comprising representatives from NRCS, IFRC Country Delegation, the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, Danish Red Cross, and Finnish Red Cross. The Advisory Team provided strategic, technical, and managerial guidance continuously to support timely decision-making and effective implementation of readiness, pre-positioning, and early action activities. Forecast monitoring mechanisms were also strengthened through the establishment of forecast monitoring teams at both NRCS Headquarters and the three targeted district chapters. These teams monitored weather and flood forecasts throughout the monsoon period, regularly updated forecast conditions, and compared forecast information against the agreed trigger statements to assess the need for activation. The sEAP was partially activated in September 2024 (and later de-activated), providing an important opportunity to test the established systems and identify operational lessons. The experience contributed to strengthening subsequent readiness planning, coordination, trigger monitoring, and early action arrangements. In 2025, NRCS continued and completed the remaining readiness activities, strengthening the systems established during the first year. The year-2 implementation began with a joint planning meeting involving NRCS Headquarters, district chapters, and targeted municipalities, followed by a refresher orientation on the flood sEAP. These activities helped align stakeholders on priorities, timelines, roles, responsibilities, activation triggers, early actions, coordination mechanisms, and reporting requirements, while incorporating lessons learned from the 2024 partial activation. During the activation, eight volunteers in Banke district were mobilized to manage two pre-identified evacuation sites and 32 volunteers (12 from Banke and 20 from Bardiya Districts) were mobilized to inform communities about the heavy rains and possible flooding. A total of 3, 600 people were reached in Banke (2, 000) and Bardiya (1, 600) through awareness messages on SGBV and child protection, as well as early warning messages to alert communities to possible evacuation. Key readiness activities undertaken during 2025 included the establishment and strengthening of early warning task forces, completion of household-level WASH assessments, simulation exercises on early warning dissemination and evacuation, strengthening of community engagement and accountability mechanisms, development and dissemination of early warning communication channels, and regular coordination with government authorities and other stakeholders. Significant progress was also made in pre-positioning essential non-food items (NFIs) at strategic locations within the targeted district chapters. Shelter toolkits, NFIs, waterproof bags, dignity and hygiene kits, and equipment for early warning communication were strategically stored to facilitate rapid deployment to at-risk communities in the event that the sEAP trigger thresholds were reached. Throughout the 2025 monsoon season, national and district-level forecast monitoring teams remained operational and regularly reviewed forecasts from the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) against the established flood trigger thresholds. Although the monitored forecasts did not meet the predefined thresholds required for activation of the sEAP during the 2025 monsoon, the continued monitoring and coordination helped maintain operational readiness and ensured that NRCS remained prepared to act if the situation deteriorated. Overall, the sEAP operation contributed to strengthening NRCS’s institutional capacity for anticipatory action, particularly in forecast monitoring, early warning, community preparedness, coordination, pre-positioning and decision-making, while also strengthening collaboration with the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) on anticipatory action. The implementation also generated valuable operational learning from the 2024 partial activation and the subsequent readiness activities undertaken in 2025. As the sEAP timeframe ended in June 2026, before the next monsoon season, NRCS completed the operation and its activities in December 2025. As the existing sEAP could not be activated beyond the 2025 monsoon season, NRCS, with technical support from the IFRC country delegation team and the Red Cross Climate Centre, developed an sEAP for next two years (2026-2028) – MDRNP021, targeting to start from coming monsoon season to ensure continued anticipatory action preparedness and to further incorporate the lessons, operational experience, and improvements identified during the 2024–2025 implementation period.
Nepal | Flood – Simplified Early Action Protocol Final Report (sEAP №: sEAP2024NP01 | Operation №: MDRNP017) – 30 September 2026
RELATED ARTICLES
