Please visit the new page dedicated to the Early Warning System for expanded information.
Communities and organizations around the world lack accessible and timely information on development projects and resources to reinforce their engagement in the development process.
The Early Warning System ensures local communities, and the organizations that support them, have verified information about proposed development bank-funded projects likely to cause human and environmental abuses, and clear strategies for advocacy – ideally before funding is decided.
The Early Warning System exchanges information, advice, tools and resources with communities, the local organizations supporting them to inform development actors. The information exchanged includes accessible information about projects at development finance institutions, including the roles of any private actors, and critical data from community-led research efforts. With data from local communities and development finance institutions, the Early Warning System exposes trends in development by sector, bank, geography and community response.
The Early Warning System relies on a community response collective of organizations which contribute tactical support, as determined by local priorities. Methods of community response may include, accessing decision-makers, community-led surveys and research, understanding possible leverage points related to investments made by private actors, filing complaints, and determining local development priorities.
The Early Warning System includes the first civil society-led tech initiative to organize, summarize and standardize projects at 15 development finance institutions. The growing EWS Database is updated daily and holds more than 27,000 investments valued at USD2.8 trillion proposed since January 2016 and the roles of more than 12,000 private actors. The EWS Database itself is an important resource, however the Early Warning System team focuses most of its time on community campaign support and outreach – getting this information and support to those nearest the proposed project who need it most.
The the newest information on proposed projects and mobilization support can inform local development priorities and campaigns, and change how development is done today. The Early Warning System provides an early advantage and broader trends analyses for communities and groups to take action for the development, if any, they envision.
