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Nearly a decade after Typhoon Haiyan, residents of resettlement sites in Tacloban report that durable solutions criteria have not been achieved. While safety from water-related hazards has improved, significant gaps remain in land tenure security, access to water, and livelihood opportunities, with vulnerabilities intersecting across gender and housing provider types.

The report examines the GRP's approach to fostering an environment where failure is viewed as a learning opportunity rather than a cause for penalty. Through case studies of seven projects, it highlights the importance of trust, flexible targets, and adaptive management in refining resilience solutions. Key recommendations include designing projects for 'probe-sense-respond' cycles and establishing clear failure thresholds to avoid wasting investment on ineffective pilots.

The Global Resilience Partnership (GRP) Water Window Challenge supported over 500,000 people across eight countries through 12 projects focused on flood resilience. The synthesis identifies that success was driven by 'layering' interventions—combining livelihood support, early warning systems (EWS), and infrastructure—and by deep stakeholder engagement. Key achievements include the establishment of 347 women-led community-based organizations in Sri Lanka, the support of 265,000 individuals in Indonesia through transboundary coordination, and the deployment of EWS reaching over 84,000 households in the India-Nepal border region. The report emphasizes that flexible, adaptive management and strong partnerships are essential for innovating and scaling resilience efforts in volatile climatic contexts.

The document presents a framework for understanding the trade-offs inherent in development and disaster risk reduction (DRR), arguing that poorly planned development can increase vulnerability while disasters can erase development gains. It introduces five dimensions of trade-offs—aggregation, participation, equity, time, and risk—and demonstrates their application to the 'Build Back Better' concept to identify opportunities for more resilient, proactive governance.

The guidelines propose a dual approach to planning for disaster resilience: examining trade-offs and implementing equitable resilience. The first approach identifies five dimensions of trade-offs—aggregation, participation, equity, time, and risk—that can inadvertently create new vulnerabilities if not addressed. The second approach, equitable resilience, focuses on four elements: recognizing subjectivities, ensuring inclusion and representation, working across multiple scales, and allowing for systemic transformation. The document emphasizes that sustainable development requires confronting power imbalances and prioritizing the needs of marginalized groups to avoid the cycle where development efforts exacerbate disaster risk.