The Investment Case for a Resilient Future

This briefing by the Global Resilience Partnership argues that the private sector and capital markets currently fail to adequately account for resilience-related risks. It proposes a new definition of resilience that moves beyond 'bouncing back' to include the capacity to adapt and transform in response to global shocks, providing a framework of five key attributes—diversity, redundancy, connectivity, inclusivity and equity, and adaptive learning—to help financial institutions mitigate risk and stabilize returns.

• Current definitions of resilience used by major intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations, including the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), are often insufficient because they focus primarily on 'bouncing back' or returning to the status quo after a shock.
• The Global Resilience Partnership proposes a new definition of resilience as the 'capacity to live and develop with change,' which encompasses the ability of nations, economies, ecosystems, and communities to absorb shocks, navigate uncertainty, and innovate or transform during crises.
• Investing in climate adaptation to build resilience can yield significant economic returns, with benefit-cost ratios estimated between 2:1 and 10:1.
• The document identifies five core attributes that should underpin resilience-based investment decisions: diversity (diversification within sectors), redundancy (back-up strategies to avoid 'single-point failure'), connectivity (balancing global networks with self-sufficiency), inclusivity and equity (reducing instability through social equality), and adaptive learning (systems to detect and learn from shocks).
• There is a strong investment case for improving resilience in the Global South because it is integral to global supply chains; failure to do so increases the volatility of returns for investors with exposure to emerging economies.
• The briefing outlines three primary 'asks' for financial institutions: adopting a definition of resilience that includes adaptation and transformation, conducting materiality assessments on how future risks (such as global warming and rising inequality) impact supply chains, and increasing capital allocation toward resilience in existing portfolios, especially in the Global South.
• Evidence suggests that corporate resilience and diversity correlate with better financial performance: more resilient companies saw 10% higher total shareholder returns during the COVID-19 pandemic, and companies with gender-diverse executive teams were 21% more likely to have above-average profitability.

APA

Global Resilience Partnership (n.d.). The Investment Case for a Resilient Future. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/the-investment-case-for-a-resilient-future-brief.pdf

Chicago

Global Resilience Partnership. The Investment Case for a Resilient Future. n.d. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/the-investment-case-for-a-resilient-future-brief.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Global Resilience Partnership |title=The Investment Case for a Resilient Future |url=https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/the-investment-case-for-a-resilient-future-brief.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{globalresiliencepartnershipndinvestment, author = {{Global Resilience Partnership}}, title = {{The Investment Case for a Resilient Future}}, institution = {Global Resilience Partnership}, url = {https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/the-investment-case-for-a-resilient-future-brief.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }