CONCEPT: Early Warning

Early Warning: All early warning actions or instances involve, in the first place, the identification by certified or acknowledged experts (or expert systems) -- or organizations -- of a likely or impending emergency or disaster event. Such identification increasingly involves a considerable amount of predictive analytics, though some warnings must be given on very short notice -- of a few days and sometimes even hours. 

Identification is of necessity followed by a notification, the "sounding" of an 'alarm', or setting off of a dedicated and familiar alarm system, primarily targeting the groups or populations whose lives and/or livelihoods are likely to be significantly affected by the event -- or, simply, those most at risk. An early warning is not early enough, or good enough, if it arrives at the same time as the misfortune which befalls the victims it was supposed to alert and give time to get to safety, or simply out of danger. 

Early warnings trigger 'responses' across a variety of 'actors', each guided by specific contingency plans and preparedness measures. Their respective competencies and formal/informal responsibilities will more often than not require smart coordination with others for optimal effect. 

In relation to a refugee emergency, UNHCR (2000: 36) defines early warning, rather unsatisfactorily, as "the collection, analysis and use of information in order to better understand the current situation as well as likely future events." In principle, moreover, contingency planning should not be triggered by a specific early warning, contrary to what UNHCR (2000: 36) suggests. It should instead be one of the latter's anchors -- and validating factors. 

Still, all this depends, of course, on the amount of time that 'responders' have to work with between the 'moment' that a coming danger is first confirmed and the 'moment' it is expected to arrive. The longer the 'lead time', the more worthy of emergency managers' time and sense of purpose will contingency planning appear to be. The shorter and shorter it is, the less and less consequential, and doable, will such planning prove to be.