Resilience building

Thanks to half a century of experience, the World Food Programme (WFP) has acquired a comparative advantage in building resilience for food security and nutrition. We have invested in early-warning and preparedness systems – including supply chain management, logistics and emergency communications – that allow governments to prevent crises or respond quickly when they happen. We are helping to develop national capacities to manage disaster risk through finance and risk-transfer tools, such as weather risk insurance. Our expertise includes vulnerability analysis and mapping, as well as support to social protection systems. In several of our operations, we have developed productive safety nets through community-based asset creation programmes. Through the Food Assistance for Assets programme, beneficiaries receive food assistance while building or rehabilitating assets such as forests, water ponds, irrigation systems, and feeder roads that will strengthen their resilience and food security in the long term.

This growing body of experience has informed our understanding; it is now helping shift our practice. These days, wherever possible, a “resilience lens” is applied at the stage of programme design, and subsequently at all stages of the programme cycle. We have learned that no two settings are alike, and that long-term collaboration is crucial. In each distinct context, we must determine how our actions can be best layered, integrated, and sequenced with the strategies of national governments and the programmes of our partners. WFP’s current transition to Country Strategic Plans, whereby national needs and priorities are jointly assessed and agreed with governments and local stakeholders, must be seen in this light: they provide a long-term planning framework that allows us to put resilience-building at the heart of our programmes.