Consultancy: El Niño 2026 Research on Anticipatory Action for Children – Bangladesh and Somalia

Summary El Niño 2026 is highly likely to intensify extreme weather, hitting hardest in already fragile, crisis-aƯected contexts. Children will bear the brunt through cascading impacts on health, education, protection, and lifelong well-being, alongside significant and under-recognised loss and damage. This research will generate evidence on how these impacts unfold and how to reduce impacts and loss and damage for children, using El Niño as an entry point to inform more eƯective design, targeting, and scaling of preparedness, anticipatory action (AA) and adaptation. It will examine what works in AA, pinpointing eƯective interventions, and how systems can deliver timely, child-centred responses at scale and contribute to the evidence base for policy, financing and practice on how AA can reduce climate-related risks, losses and damages for children and strengthen resilience to future shocks. Research aim and objectives This research aims to generate actionable, child-centred evidence to inform more eƯective AA, preparedness, adaptation and responses to the 2026/26 El Niño event1 and similar climate shocks. The research is intended to inform programming and decision-making by governments, local and national actors, NGOs, donors and multilateral organisations, while contributing to wider policy and financing discussions on child-centred AA, resilience and loss and damage. It will document the loss and damage experienced by children in the context of El Niño and cumulative shocks and examine how AA can reduce the impacts on children, as well as avert, minimise and address loss and damage. The research is designed as a phased study that reflects both the anticipated progression of El Niño impacts and the time required to assess resilience and adaptation outcomes. Phase I, conducted in 2026, will focus on the immediate impacts of El Niño on children, together with an assessment of the eƯectiveness of anticipatory actions and early responses in reducing risks, losses and damages. While this phase will identify potential pathways to resilience and adaptation, it is not expected to generate suƯicient evidence to assess longer-term resilience outcomes directly. Subject to additional funding, Phase II extending the research beyond 2026, would enable analysis of longer-term and secondary impacts, as well as the contribution of anticipatory action to resilience, adaptive capacity, and vulnerability reduction for children, households and communities. The research seeks to answer the following specific questions: 1. What are the immediate and emerging impacts2 of El Niño on children? a) What impact does El Niño have on children across the most affected sectors in the selected contexts?3 b) What losses and damages do children experience as a result of El Niño and compounding shocks? c) Which children and contexts are at greatest risk? d) How do El Niño impacts interact with other climate, economic and conflict-related stressors? 2. How can anticipatory action effectively reduce the impacts experienced by children (including through actions that are timely, adequately financed, appropriately targeted, inclusive, locally led, and contextually appropriate to reduce risks, losses and damages for children)? 1 Unless otherwise stated, reference to El Niño within this document will refer to the 2026/27 event. 2 We note that impacts of the current El Niño event will extend into 2027 and in many instances may not be fully felt until considerably later. 3 Sectors could include, for example, health, education, protection and well-being; given the scope of the study, it may, however, be necessary to focus on those sectors most significantly aƯected by El Niño in the chosen geographic context, and where suƯicient relevant data is available to support meaningful analysis. 4 a) Which AA actions, modalities, and interventions are effective in mitigating negative impacts and loss and damage for children? b) What governance, coordination/capacity factors enable or constrain national and local actors in leading/sustaining effective anticipatory action? c) Which children benefit the most from interventions (e.g. age, gender, vulnerability)? d) What affects – or constrains – the effectiveness of interventions and how do these vary across contexts? e) How do different components of AA systems, including risk analysis, early warning, trigger mechanisms, pre-agreed action plans, financing, targeting and delivery, interact to shape outcomes for children? What are the key bottlenecks that constrain the timeliness, adequacy, inclusiveness, effectiveness and scale of AA? 3. (Second phase, subject to extension of research)4 : How do the impacts of El Niño evolve over time, and to what extent does anticipatory action contribute to reduced vulnerability, resilience and strengthened adaptation capacity for children, households and communities? a) To what extent do the impacts, losses and damages associated with El Niño persist beyond the initial shock period? b) What secondary and longer-term consequences emerge for children across education, health, protection, wellbeing and livelihoods? c) To what extent, and through what pathways, does AA contribute to longer-term adaptive capacity and resilience for children, households and communities? d) What lessons can inform the integration of anticipatory action, adaptation and longer-term development programming?