Resilience Insights

The report identifies five key intervention areas for building resilience: nature-based solutions, empowering marginalized groups, information and technology, inclusive financial services, and low-cost infrastructure. It argues that effective resilience programming must be systemic by design, utilize layered and linked interventions, create agile networks, promote equity and inclusion, and prioritize iterative learning and scaling. Evidence from GRP's USAID and Z Zurich Foundation challenges, as well as 42 partner programs, demonstrates that these approaches can protect development gains and improve well-being in the face of climate and economic shocks.

• Resilience is defined by the GRP as the "capacity to persist, adapt and transform in the face of change," where transformation is the most critical ambition, involving "exploring new sources of livelihoods, new ways of stewarding our ecosystems and governing our planet in an equitable way."
• Evidence from GRP Innovation Challenges indicates that resilience is rarely the result of a single solution but rather a "combination or package of interventions." Five primary intervention areas were identified as most effective: nature-based solutions, empowering marginalized groups, information and technology, inclusive finance and markets, and low-cost infrastructure.
• Nature-based solutions, such as mangrove conservation in Sri Lanka and Vietnam, provide multiple benefits by "buffering the worst effects of shocks" and serving as carbon sinks and fisheries nurseries.
• Empowering women and marginalized groups is essential for sustainable solutions. For example, Mahila Housing Trust's work in South Asia led to 35% of involved households becoming "less vulnerable to climate-related risks" through the establishment of women-led community action groups.
• The integration of information and technology, such as early warning systems (EWS) and mobile apps, improves anticipatory capacity. In Uganda, the Tahmo project provided EWS information to approximately 1.2 million people, with 75% of respondents taking action based on the messages.
• Inclusive financial services, including risk-contingent credit (RCC) and village savings and loans associations (VSLAs), enhance the ability of communities to plan for and respond to threats. The SATISFy project in the Horn of Africa used satellite-derived drought indices to create RCC products that embed insurance within credit.
• Low-cost, scalable infrastructure can significantly reduce risk exposure. MetaMeta's "Roads for Resilience" approach in Ethiopia and Kenya benefited over 3 million people by implementing road water management systems that increased crop yields even during droughts.
• Effective resilience programming requires five core components: being "systemic by design," layering and linking interventions, creating "dynamic and agile networks," ensuring equity and inclusion, and a commitment to "innovate, learn and scale."
• The report recommends a shift from "gender sensitive" to "gender transformative" programming, which aims to "tackle gender relations in favor of the equal sharing of power by women and men" and revise the structures that underpin inequalities.
• There is a critical need for longer planning horizons, as "two or three years are not sufficient" for sustainable systemic change. The report suggests hybrid funding modalities that combine challenge funds with long-term phased grants.
• The "resilience triple dividend" framework is used to build the business case for investment by identifying three benefits: avoiding losses during disasters, stimulating economic activity by de-risking investment, and creating development co-benefits.

APA

Wilson, D., Verkaart, S., Nel, D., Murphy, B., Robens, S., & Yaron, G. (2019). Resilience Insights. Global Resilience Partnership. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/grp_resilience_insights_report-11.pdf

Chicago

Wilson, Dave, Simone Verkaart, Deon Nel, Ben Murphy, Sarah Robens, and Gil Yaron. Resilience Insights. Global Resilience Partnership, 2019. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/grp_resilience_insights_report-11.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Wilson |first1=Dave |last2=Verkaart |first2=Simone |last3=Nel |first3=Deon |last4=Murphy |first4=Ben |last5=Robens |first5=Sarah |last6=Yaron |first6=Gil |title=Resilience Insights |publisher=Global Resilience Partnership |date=September 2019 |url=https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/grp_resilience_insights_report-11.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{wilson2019resilience, author = {Wilson, Dave and Verkaart, Simone and Nel, Deon and Murphy, Ben and Robens, Sarah and Yaron, Gil}, title = {{Resilience Insights}}, institution = {Global Resilience Partnership}, year = {2019}, month = sep, url = {https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/grp_resilience_insights_report-11.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }