Systems

Resilience is defined as the “ability of people, households, communities, countries, and systems to mitigate, adapt to, and recover from shocks and stresses in a manner that reduces chronic vulnerability and facilitates inclusive growth.” The multilevel nature and scale of resilience is key.

While progress has been made on measuring household- and community-level resilience, there is an increasing recognition that market, social, ecological, and other systems can have a significant impact on household and community resilience, as well as being a locus of resilience on their own. Market systems, for example, can increase household resilience by providing profitable, diversified livelihood opportunities, but are also themselves subject to shocks such as price fluctuations. More work needs to be done on identifying and measuring systems that scale resilience, and understanding systems that are already in place is important to help prevent activities that duplicate existing efforts and displace existing stakeholders.