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Bangladesh: Advancing Early Warnings for All

Bangladesh: Advancing Early Warnings for All
Strengthening inclusive, end-to-end early warning systems through national leadership and partnerships

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Strengthening national frameworks
Strengthening inclusion
Regional collaboration
Working with the community 
Anticipatory action turns forecasts into early response 

Through the Early Warnings for All (EW4All) initiative, Bangladesh is strengthening its multi-hazard early warning system by developing a national roadmap, from strengthening observation and forecasting systems to putting anticipatory actions into motion, centreing on communities, and advancing new technologies and partnerships to make alerts more inclusive and effective.

Roadmap drafting is now well advanced, with national coordination mechanisms in place, supported by technical partners, to ensure the roadmap is comprehensive, practical, and nationally owned. UNDRR is strengthening the evidence base for early warning and early action through a collaborative risk knowledge gap analysis, which has informed a national risk knowledge roadmap outlining priorities for future investment. This work is complemented by UNDRR’s review of loss and damage data governance, which provides recommendations for an improved national tracking system to inform policy, financing, and sectoral planning. Bangladesh has also revised DRM policies to explicitly enable anticipatory action, joining a small but growing group of countries doing so.

Building on these efforts, WMO, with the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) and Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB), carried out a national capacity and assessment study to examine existing capabilities, gaps, and needs across end-to-end early warning systems for floods and drought. The resulting National Assessment Report was submitted to the Adaptation Fund as part of the HydroSOS Bangladesh and Nepal (BaNe) project, which is currently under review for funding. To strengthen communication capacities, BMD and BWDB also organized national and local workshops to train journalists and media outlets on hydro-meteorological warnings, highlighting the essential role of the media in ensuring alerts are conveyed quickly, accurately, and without distortion. Enhanced cooperation between BMD, FFWC, media partners, and other stakeholders further advances Bangladesh’s commitment to delivering timely, actionable warnings for all. 

Bangladesh is strengthening the systems that carry warnings from national authorities to people at risk by scaling up mobile alerting and emergency telecommunications. With technical support from ITU, and in close collaboration with the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) and the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief, the country is advancing the National Emergency Telecommunication Plan and the development of a future Cell Broadcast Early Warning System as core enablers of the national EW4All roadmap. In the lead-up to the National Roadmap Validation Workshop, ITU supported a series of national consultations under Pillar 3, including a dedicated workshop hosted by BTRC, bringing together government authorities, regulators, mobile network operators, humanitarian partners and the UN to build a shared understanding of how emergency connectivity can be safeguarded before, during and after disasters and how geo-targeted alerts can be delivered even when mobile networks are congested. Together, these efforts are helping align emergency telecommunications, mobile alerting and broader warning dissemination strategies under a single, nationally owned roadmap, supporting Bangladesh’s transition towards rapid, reliable and accessible delivery of life-saving alerts to all at risk. 

Bangladesh’s progress is further supported through the Early Warnings for All multi-stakeholder accelerator funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), which reinforces national coordination for the EW4All roadmap, strengthens the integration of risk knowledge and communication processes, and enhances preparedness capacities across all four pillars of the early warning system. WMO, through the World Food Programme, has also ensured that a national EW4All coordinator is in place to support the government in drafting the roadmap, working closely with government focal points and pillar leads.  

Complementing these efforts, the multi-year CREWS South Asia project is strengthening Bangladesh’s hydrometeorological service capacities under Pillar 2 and advancing inclusivity measures to ensure warnings reach those most at risk. Through BMD and the BWDB, additional activities have focused on enhancing hydrometeorological warning services and improving last-mile connectivity.

Learn about the science, coordination, and community action behind people-centred early warning systems.

Strengthening inclusion

Bangladesh continues to advance people-centered, inclusive early warning systems. In partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), UNDRR organized a strategic dialogue on inclusive humanitarian preparedness, risk reduction, early warning, and response. The dialogue produced concrete recommendations for developing inclusive multi-hazard early warning systems tailored to at-risk communities. 

Early outcomes include stronger collaboration among key stakeholders and a clearer path for integrating inclusivity into early warning system design. These were facilitated by UNDRR’s Inclusive Early Warning Early Action Checklist and Implementation Guide, which provides practical guidance for designing systems that reach everyone, including persons with disabilities, older persons, and women in remote areas. 

At the AI for EW4All Innovation Challenge, a team from the University of Dhaka developed a system translating forecasts into plain language, voice, and sign language, expanding accessibility for people with low literacy and people with disabilities. 

This process builds on the National Plan for Disaster Management (2021–2025), which identifies social inclusion as the foundation of resilience, with measures to mainstream gender across laws, plans, and budgets, ensure women’s participation in DRM committees, and strengthen sex-disaggregated data systems.  

Guy on wheelchair

Regional collaboration

Bangladesh’s national advances are reinforced through regional collaboration and technical innovation. In 2023, UNDRR brought together Asia-Pacific partners, including Bangladesh, for a regional exchange on risk knowledge. The meeting strengthened collaboration on displacement risks, highlighted resource gaps, and promoted gender and disability inclusion in system design.

Making warnings effective means ensuring they reach everyone, in every format. To make warnings more inclusive and effective, Bangladesh is developing regional partnerships and new technical solutions. Key steps have included: 

  • WMO, with support from Sweden, held a national Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) training workshop to strengthen the country’s capacity to issue standardized, authoritative alerts across platforms. A regional CAP trainer from the India Meteorological Department contributed practical experience and cross-border insights, supporting effective and sustainable national CAP implementation. 
  • A National Consultative Workshop on EW4All Pillar 3 to refine strategies for warning dissemination and communication, ensuring alerts are understandable at the last mile. 
  • The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, with ITU, is advancing a Cell Broadcast Early Warning System under the National Emergency Telecommunication Plan to enable geo-targeted alerts even when mobile networks are congested. 
The Common Alerting Protocol is designed to issue alerts at any scale, for any emergency, across all available media.

Working with the community

At the center of progress in Bangladesh is the community of people and volunteers who turn warnings into action. Community inclusion is not only a principle but a practice embedded in national and local frameworks. Community committees and trained volunteers contribute to disaster preparedness by combining local knowledge with response skills like first aid and early warning communication.

The Cyclone Preparedness Programme (CPP), co-led by the Government and the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, remains central. With more than 76,000 trained volunteers, CPP has been credited with reducing cyclone deaths from half a million during Cyclone Bhola (1970) to just 26 during Cyclone Amphan (2020). In 2023, the programme expanded to include anticipatory actions such as livestock evacuation and cash transfers, showing how traditional preparedness mechanisms are evolving to meet today’s challenges.

Under the Swedish support to EW4All, BMD and WMO organized two training workshops - one for farmers and one for school students - focused on thunderstorms and lightning, which have become an increasingly severe hazard in recent years. These sessions strengthened community preparedness by improving understanding of lightning risks and practical safety measures. 

In Cox’s Bazar, home to the world’s largest refugee settlement, IOM has tailored a camp-level multi-hazard early warning system for landslides, floods, and cyclones. More than 1,600 volunteers (50% women) now issue alerts via sirens, megaphones, and radio, complemented by anticipatory measures such as relocating households from danger zones, reinforcing slopes with bamboo, improving drainage, and pre-positioning supplies. These community-driven actions, coordinated with government and host communities, have expanded early warning coverage to more than 500,000 residents in the camps. 

Together, these efforts show how Bangladesh is putting Early Warnings for All into practice through national strategies and new technologies, as well as putting communities at the center.

The Cyclone Preparedness Programme is helping communities prepare for disasters, strengthen resilience, and protect those most at risk.

Anticipatory action turns forecasts into early response

Through strengthened governance and collaboration among national, regional, and community partners, Bangladesh’s early warning systems are now driving faster, more coordinated early action. Coordination mechanisms co-chaired by the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief, the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office and the Humanitarian Coordination Task Team, ensure that early warning planning is aligned across government, development, and humanitarian systems.

In May 2023, as Tropical Cyclone Mocha approached the Bay of Bengal, forecasts from the Bangladesh Meteorological Department and WMO’s Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre in New Delhi were consolidated through the WMO Coordination Mechanism (WCM) Hydromet Scan. This identified high-risk zones and enabled anticipatory humanitarian actions three days before landfall. Relief items and cash assistance were pre-positioned, shelters reinforced, and communities mobilized. Losses and damages were significantly reduced compared to past cyclones of similar strength. 

In 2024, EW4All partners activated anticipatory action measures during riverine floods in July, delivering unconditional cash grants to vulnerable households. Anticipatory action was also activated for cyclones (supported by WFP and the Start Network) and for heatwaves (supported by IFRC). These measures show how Bangladesh’s systems can translate forecasts into financing and early action across different hazards. 

Predicting Tropical Cyclone Mocha in the Bay of Bengal

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