| Sumario: | Collaboration between CGIAR and the World Food Programme (WFP) has enabled more proactive, data-driven interventions to protect people against the impacts of conflict and climate shocks. This collaboration has been extended to digital innovations for flood preparedness and early warning in a fragile environment in Ethiopia through this study. Flood preparedness and early warning can be improved by providing timely, accurate warnings to all stakeholders. However, several challenges affect flood preparedness and early warning, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected environments. This project aims to overcome these challenges by scaling a Digital Twin (DT) for flood early warning in these environments. DT is a virtual replica of a physical object. It helps to monitor what is happening in real time, issue accurate, timely flood warnings and share relevant flood-related information so that stakeholders act before a flood occurs. It also brings together information from multiple data sources, including ground-based data sensors and satellites, detailed elevation data for the study site and flood forecasting models. It is the future aim of the DT to serve as a convening tool, fostering conversations and negotiations for stakeholder collaboration, the integration of humanitarian development strategies, disaster preparedness, planning and response and a strategic tool for climate adaptation and sustainable land-use planning.
The Dolo Ado Floodplain Digital Twin (DT) co-design workshop aimed to generate innovative ideas and collaboratively design a DT platform to enhance flood preparedness and early warning in the Dolo Ado district of the Somali Region, Ethiopia. Key stakeholders from disaster risk management, climate service providers, humanitarian organizations, and water resource specialists collaborated to ensure the design reflected their user needs and data requirements for addressing flood risk in the district. They represented local, national, and international organizations. The DT is expected to benefit refugees, internally displaced people and the host community in the study site, including women, children, and marginalized communities. The co-design workshop took place on June 26th and 27th of 2025.
The workshop helped identify and categorize potential DT users and outline their challenges and needs through interactive discussion. Prioritization of data requirements, generation of ideas to overcome priority challenges and identification of the DT host organizations were key outcomes. This study will serve as a reference for future design thinking works, expanding the approach on conflict sensitivity (e.g., preventing resource tensions) and integrating women, youth, and vulnerable groups into the co-development and use of digital tools.
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