What facilitates integration in resilience programs? A case study on Nepal
Building resilience requires a long-term commitment and an integrated approach to strengthen the capacities of individuals, households, and communities to respond to, recover from, and prevent (where possible) shocks and stresses.
This report synthesizes the experiences of two programs implemented by Mercy Corps: USAID’s Office for Food for Peace-funded Promoting Agriculture, Health and Alternative Livelihoods (PAHAL) and Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies-funded Managing Risk through Economic Development-II (M-RED II), which both sought to facilitate resilience of rural communities in Nepal through their integrated resilience programming. While these two programs employed different sectors and approaches in their resilience programming and integration, evaluations of PAHAL and M-RED II both highlight the benefit of investing the time and effort to design, implement, and manage integrated resilience programming. On this basis, these programs are selected as case studies for this report.
This report offers enabling conditions and strategies that can facilitate resilience program integration — the intentional layering and sequencing of multi-sectoral interventions and the coordination of actors — in order to prevent or reduce the drivers and effects of shocks and stresses that undermine the long-term wellbeing of target populations. These findings are intended to inform other resiliencefocused programs that seek to intentionally integrate activities across multiple sectors, geographies, and populations within their programming. The report contributes to a nascent body of knowledge on the integration of resilience programs which are grounded in field experience. However, additional research is required to understand what factors enable integration across contexts and the added value of investing in integrated resilience programming. In conclusion, areas for future programming, research and learning are highlighted below.