Integrating Gender into Resilience Analysis: A Conceptual Overview

Populations around the world work every day at maintaining a level of stability in their lives as they face ongoing challenges linked to poverty. With or without the necessary resources, they do their best to feed their families, maintain a roof over their heads, and provide a sense of safety and security for their households.

Recurrent crises pose an additional strain on these populations and their resources, but those people, households, communities and systems that are more resilient are better able to mitigate, adapt to, and recover from shocks and stresses in a manner that reduces chronic vulnerability and facilitates inclusive growth. Resilience analysis encompasses a context-specific set of shocks and stresses, resilience capacities, and well-being outcomes. Among the resilience measurement community, there is widespread acknowledgement that when people are faced with shocks and stresses, households’ capacity to cope with and proactively respond to adverse events are critical factors in determining certain well-being outcomes such as food security, health, and economic opportunity.