Early action saves lives and livelihoods. Early actions before a hazard hits help prevent or reduce its potential impacts. Actions include early warnings and evacuations, reinforcing homes, distributing health protection kits, setting up mobile cooling centres and distributing cash.
Early action starts with legal frameworks. Mandating early action in laws policies, and plans ensures that they happen. Laws, policies and plans can detail what the actions are, when they happen, and who is responsible for them.
For example, mandating forecasting of hazards, early warnings to the population, and defining roles and responsibilities, coordination mechanisms, and information sharing between the range of stakeholders involved in national disaster legislation, and regulating them in a local disaster plan.