World: Financing the Last Mile: An Investment Case for Early Warnings for All

Please refer to the attached file. Citation Amarnath, Giriraj, Alok Sikka, Ian Overton, Ritu Bharadwaj, Avinash Venkata Adavikolanu, and Catalina Jamie. 2026. Financing the Last Mile: An Investment Case for Early Warnings for All. International Water Management Institute. https: //doi. org/10. 5337/2026. 233. Abstract/Description With a year to the United Nations’ Early Warnings for All deadline, the case for early warning is settled: countries with comprehensive multi-hazard early warning systems record disaster mortality nearly six times lower than those without, and every dollar invested in hydrometeorological and warning services returns between four and thirty-six dollars. What is failing is the financing. This brief combines IWMI’s synthesis of the Eyes on the Storm webinar series, in which more than seventy practitioners from UN agencies, national services, insurers and community networks described what works and what does not, with the latest global data on early warning and disaster risk finance published between late 2025 and October 2026. Four distortions emerge. Early Warnings for All costed delivery at USD 3. 1 billion for 2023–2027, yet its two dedicated funds have approved about USD 220 million. The money reaches the wrong places: over half of tracked national early warning finance sits in five countries, three-quarters is lent rather than granted, and low-income and fragile states each receive under 7 percent of pre-arranged disaster finance. Systems are built but not run: in the least-developed and island countries assessed by the Alliance for Hydromet Development, 95 percent of services have no maintenance budget, and nearly half of surveyed stations do not work. Further to this, money is often released after disasters rather than before, although pre-arranged finance reached a record USD 9. 4 billion in 2024 and anticipatory action protected 9. 6 million people in 2025, with documented returns of up to USD 7 per dollar in the best cases. Six recommendations, each linked to a pillar of the Early Warnings for All framework and to the actors best placed to deliver it, set out how finance ministries, development banks, climate funds, telecommunications regulators and the private sector can close much of the gap before 2027.

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