Risk Identification: The Early Warning Messenger can be Shot. But Risks are Bullet-Proof!
Service Category: Systems & Strategy
Client Type: Global Non-Governmental Organisation
Service: Our client had invested in humanitarian relief for a post-conflict country for over a decade. It was now looking to transition into longer-term development investments. It sought FJP’s support in reviewing its strategic options.
What we did: FJP: ·
- Undertook a risk profiling of key national social, political, economic and environmental exposures ·
- Analysed the potential medium and long-term effect of identified risks ·
- Assessed the past experience of national governance actions to reduce the negative effects of these exposures. ·
- Reviewed the likelihood of transformational improvements in national capacity to reduce adverse exposures. ·
- Examined the implications for our client’s business and the extent to which it could transit from short-term humanitarian interventions.
Foresight Created: We advised our client: ·
- That it would be unlikely to transit from humanitarian interventions as the national risk profile, combined with weak governance, predicted persistent and significant challenges. ·
- That it would more likely need to invest in its disaster management capabilities, given the exposures identified by FJP.
At the time, disaster management was a tiny unit of our client. However, it did not take very long for our predictions to crystallise. Disaster management did, indeed, become the dominant element of its business in subsequent years.
Risks can be ignored by policymakers. But the effect of policy failures only makes for greater adversity when the risks materialise, as they will! Risks do not care if early warning of their existence gets shelved.
