Risk and Resilience

The ability of households, communities and nations to absorb and recover from shocks, whilst positively adapting and transforming their structures and means for living in the face of long-term stresses, change and uncertainty. Resilience is about addressing the root causes of crises while strengthening the capacities and resources of a system in order to cope with risks, stresses and shocks.

Helping societies to better manage risks and shocks will ensure that our development investments are not undermined or destroyed by crises. Because different types of risks (violence and conflict, natural hazards, economic shocks, etc.) and stressors (such as urbanisation and ageing populations) are complex and interlinked, humanitarian and development actors, along with states, must work together more closely to target vulnerability.

The OECD plays a unique role bringing a broad range of political, humanitarian and development actors including OECD-DAC members, governments, the UN system and civil society together and driving better results by encouraging the sharing of good practice and by holding its members accountable to their international commitments.

The OECD helps OECD-DAC members increase the effectiveness and sustainability of their Official Development Assistance (ODA), and deliver Agenda 2030 goals and the commitments outlined by the World Humanitarian Summit in the agenda for humanity, including:

1. Increasing coherence between humanitarian, development and peace and state-building actions: all actors should work in the same space, at the same time and in line with their respective comparative advantage. This ensures that immediate humanitarian needs are effectively met while also addressing the longer-term drivers of crises.
2. Focusing on the most vulnerable: in order to end poverty, we must “reach those furthest behind first”.
3. Investing in crisis risk management: this can be achieved by investing in prevention and building resilient systems that will adapt to and absorb shocks.
4. Promoting context-specific approaches: in order to better understand the structural drivers of vulnerability and to adequately address them humanitarian, development and peace and state-building actors need to build a common understanding of risks, capacities and vulnerability in a specific context, to inform response, recovery and development plans.

The OECD developed the Resilience Systems Analysis (RSA) framework to help its members and their partners operationalise their commitments. Since 2014, the OECD has been supporting them on the systemic integration of the RSA into their strategy and programming.

Tools for resilience

The Resilience Systems Analysis (RSA) is designed to help DAC members and their partners effectively integrate risk and resilience into their strategies and programme planning. It places the understanding of risk, capacities and vulnerability at the centre of effective programming and emphasises the added value of programmatic approaches that are coherent, multidimensional, cross-sectoral and vertically integrated.

The RSA helps to bring together a broad range of political, humanitarian and development actors to support common risk-informed programming on the ground. It facilitates a collective and contextualised understanding of the impacts of risks and stressors on a system’s main assets. It also helps actors to focus on their comparative advantage – whether government, bilateral development co-operation partners, or other international, national and local agencies – to deliver better results.

Integration of resilience into strategy and programming

Between 2015 and 2016, the OECD and Sida piloted the RSA into Sida’s strategy and programming. The Learning and Recommendations report captures the value the RSA added in improving Sida’s analysis, strategy and programming. The report also provides an example of how systems analyses can be integrated into programming processes for other DAC members.

• Resilience tools and methodological basis:
• Guidelines for Resilience Systems Analysis: A “how-to” guide for field practitioners
• Resilience Systems Analysis: Learning and Recommendations report
• From good idea to good practice - options to make resilience work
  

The OECD supports members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) to meet their commitments and to strengthen resilience in their strategy development and planning processes.

Sweden

The RSA framework was piloted within seven country programmes, each at a different stage of the programme cycle (from strategy development to review to programme development), to support the integration of resilience into the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency’s (Sida) development strategy and programming. Learn more about the outcome of this collaboration through these country reports.

Countries report list (docTyped link)

flag	published	title / link	anchor
	2016	Ethiopia	ethiopia
	2015	Jordan and Lebanon	jordanLebanon
	2016	Kenya	kenya
	2015	Somalia	somalia
	2016	South Sudan	southSudan
	2016	Sudan	sudan
	2015	Syria	syria

France

The OECD and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs conducted a cross-border risk analysis in the Sahel region to help operationalise France’s strategy for fragile situations. This analysis was framed by the five fragility dimensions (economic, environmental, political, security and social) outlined in the States of Fragility 2016 report.

The OECD supports DAC partners such as UN agencies (UNICEF, UNDP, WFP, OCHA and FAO) in addition to national and local governments and civil society.

United Nations Development Group for West and Central Africa

The OECD is working closely with the United Nations Development Group for West and Central Africa (UNDG-WCA) in the Sahel region. The OECD-UNDG WCA collaboration helps to develop common, robust, risk-informed analysis and planning to support response, recovery and development assistance frameworks (UNDAF) by supporting United Nations Country Teams (UNCT) and governments. Learn more about this collaboration from the guidelines. (Forthcoming)

Countries report list (docTyped link)

flag	published	title / link	anchor
	coming soon	Central African Republic	centralAfricanRepubliic
		Mauritania
		Liptako-Gourma Region	LiptakoGhourma

Other collaboration

Countries report list (docTyped link)

flag	published	title / link	anchor
	2014	Democratic Republic of the Congo	congo
	2014	Lebanon	lebanon
	2017	Mauritania	mauritania
	2015	Somalia	somalia
	2016	South Sudan	southSudan

The OECD’s work on risk and resilience includes sharing knowledge. Therefore, we participate in several mechanisms and groups that are working on risk analysis.

• Networks and Partnerships:
• Index for risk management - INFORM
• The Capacity for Disaster Reduction Initiative - CADRI
• Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery - GFDRR
• Urban Resilience Working Group Cities Alliance

The right financing, in the right place, at the right time is essential to strengthen resilience and to deliver our commitments to "leave no one behind" and to "reach the furthest behind first". The OECD supports its members and their partners on linking the right sort of financing to common, risk-informed analysis and encourages the sharing of good practices regarding financing preparedness and emerging innovations for more flexible and focused funding.

• Related documents
• Good development support in fragile, at-risk and crisis affected countries
• Financing for stability in the post-2015 era
• Financing for stability: Guidance for Practitioners
• A calculated risk

• Resilience working papers
• What are the right incentives to help donors support resilience?
• How should donors communicate abour risk and resilience?
• What does resilience mean for donors?