The next meeting of the Project-Level Early Warning (or PLEW) Interest Group will be on June 11, 9 a.m.–11 a.m. U.S. Eastern Daylight Time, at FHI 360. The Norwegian Refugee Council will present its work, in consortium with other partners, to develop and implement a community-based early warning system in south and central Somalia as part of a broader project objective to build resilience among these populations. Anyone who is interested is welcome to attend in person or through a webinar (use this link to attend the webinar). The purpose of the PLEW interest group is to encourage an exchange of ideas, methods and tools, lessons learned, and promising practices around early warning for projects using or interested in the approach.

About PLEW and the Interest Group: Projects funded by USAID’s Office of Food for Peace integrate a multitude of elements and approaches to reduce food insecurity among vulnerable populations, including efforts to decrease exposure to shocks and mitigate their negative impacts. One approach is for projects to regularly monitor food security conditions in their implementation areas to quickly identify and facilitate responses to potential shocks before they devolve into full-fledged crises. This approach is referred to as project-level early warning.

The PLEW interest group was initiated by FANTA and the Food for Peace-funded Technical and Operational Performance Support (TOPS) project, and is comprised primarily of representatives from nongovernmental organizations—in particular, Food for Peace implementing partners. However, participation by any organization implementing projects with a PLEW element is welcome.

Held quarterly, in-person and virtually, PLEW meetings discuss topics across a range of early warning-related themes that include case studies, tools and methods, and PLEW linkages with disaster risk reduction and resilience building. By sharing knowledge, experiences, research, and other information on early warning and response, projects have access to more tools with which to work to reduce disaster risk and mitigate the negative impacts of shocks.

Learn more about the PLEW interest group and view past events here. To get involved in the group, email Laura Glaeser, Food Security Technical Advisor on the FANTA project, at lglaeser@fhi360.org.