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This solutions paper answers the question: what should the G7 do to better avert and respond to crises in order to reduce both human suffering and the overall cost of crisis response? The decision to include discussions on disaster risk as part the UK’s G7 presidency is extremely welcome. The time has come for a radical shift in how the world responds to crises (disasters that overwhelm one or more countries). We now face a situation where 1 in 33 people worldwide is predicted to need humanitarian assistance in 2021, up 40% on 2020. Climate change, population shifts,and conflict mean that our disaster risk is rising, not abating, and so the G7’s attention to this matter is of critical importance.

The paper identifies three critical solutions that the upcoming G7 should initiate that, together, would start a new global approach for predicting crises, preparing for them, and ensuring more people are better protected.

1. Predict crises better by creating a new ‘Crisis Lookout’ function to increase engagement with risk information and support the prioritisation of crises globally, regionally, and nationally.

   Recommendation: G7 commits to working with affected countries to create a Crisis Lookout to liaise, synthesise, quantify, and communicate global crisis risks and potential costs in advance, operating with impartiality, transparency, and inclusivity.

2. Prepare response better by agreeing to make pre-arranged finance the primary way to pay for crises so that funding gets where it is needed faster, with greater impact.

   Recommendation: G7 agrees to make pre- arranged finance the primary method for funding crises by 2030 across all international aid, with credible plans in place by COP26, including the annual monitoring of progress.

3. Protect vulnerable people better by supporting an initial group of ‘pathfinder’ countries to ensure that we ‘leave no one behind’ through better prediction of, and coordinated protection from, crises.

   Recommendation: G7 supports an inclusive initiative that allows governments, humanitarian agencies, the private sector, NGOs, and civil society to deliver better protection from crises in the most vulnerable pathfinder countries.