Despite “real progress”, third of countries still lack early warning systems

A United Nations initiative to ensure everyone on earth is protected by a multi-hazard early warning system (MHEWS) “has made real progress” but “too many people are still left exposed,” according to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

Since Guterres launched the Early Warning Systems for All goal in 2022, the number of countries reporting that they have an MHEWS has increased from 113 to 136, the UN announced on Wednesday. Around 60 nations are still not covered 15 months ahead of the UN’s 2027 deadline.

A United Nations initiative to ensure everyone on earth is protected by a multi-hazard early warning system (MHEWS) “has made real progress” but “too many people are still left exposed,” according to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

Since Guterres launched the Early Warning Systems for All goal in 2022, the number of countries reporting that they have an MHEWS has increased from 113 to 136, the UN announced on Wednesday. Around 60 nations are still not covered 15 months ahead of the UN’s 2027 deadline.

“We must close the remaining gaps, reach every country, and ensure that by the end of 2027, every person on earth is protected”, outgoing UN chief Guterres said.

The UN said the largest gaps in coverage are mainly among the world’s least developed countries, small island developing states and fragile and conflict-affected nations. These countries are also among those hardest hit by climate change.

Guterres said that early warning systems “save lives, protect livelihoods and shield communities from disaster”, highlighting the Colombian Red Cross’s response to drought in June as an example.

At an event on the initiative in New York on Monday, Huw Beynon from the UN Disaster Risk Reduction Office said that the systems had helped during floods in Kenya last year and when recent cyclones hit Madagascar.

Jagan Chapagain, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said in a statement that “reaching more people with early warnings is a success worth celebrating”.

Simple warnings not enough

The Early Warning Systems for All initiative supports about 160 countries and 31 countries have developed national roadmaps to install early warning systems. But Beynon said that, while most countries have a MHEWS, most also report limited capacity. “So you might have a warning disseminated but it’s not leading to the right action,” he said.

Speaking alongside Beynon, Nepali climate negotiator Manjeet Dhakal gave a recent example of this. He said Nepali authorities had sent text messages to 600,000 people – including him – who were in, or had recently been in, an area where flooding was likely.

The flood, caused by a glacial rock-ice collapse, swept through the valley at huge speed, with a wave at least 30 metres above the river, killing thousands. But the messages did not “articulate the magnitude of this disaster”, he said, adding “these are humans who have to craft that message and that scale of disaster has never [previously] occurred”. The Straits Times has reported that these messages did not say how fast or big the flood would be and were sent too late for many.

When heavy rainfall led to floods in the Spanish city of Valencia in 2024, some text messages with warnings were only sent out after flooding had started and did not give residents clear instructions of how to act, such as moving to higher floors and not driving. Many Valencians drowned in their cars or in the underground garages of their apartment blocks, according to official reports.

Remaining barriers

​Rohini Kohli, the UN Development Programme’s head of climate adaptation policy, told Monday’s New York event that a challenge for MHEWS in developing countries is a lack of foundational data.

This can include equipment to measure physical factors like rainfall, river levels and soil moisture or human factors like where peoples homes or power lines are located. The UN’s Systematic Observations Financing Facility is trying to bridge this “critical gap”, she said.

Another barrier, Kohli said, is that acting on early warnings is often the responsibility of local rather than national authorities and they need the capacity to respond in the right way. “Like most adaptation, local leadership has to be at the centre for design and delivery,” she said.

The IFRC’s Chapagain said that as “warnings alone are not enough”, authorities should “invest in trusted local actors so that communities can turn information into action and become agents of their own resilience, not simply recipients of alerts. Early action is what makes early warnings work.”

Kohli added that a lack of finance was also a problem for developing countries. She cited the UN’s adaptation gap report, which found that developing countries will need well over $300 billion a year by 2035 to adapt to climate change while they are currently receiving less than a tenth of that figure.

In 2022, the World Meteorological Organisation estimated that meeting the early warning systems for all goal would require a total of $1.5 billion.