Resilience: a risk management approach
This background note explores the concept of 'resilience' and investigates whether a common definition and understanding can be reached and whether resilience can be translated into a practical set of tools and approaches. It begins by examining some core definitions of resilience, before progressing to explore how resilience might be measured, how risk can be managed to build resilience and also investigates the dangers in aligning resilience and risk management.
The paper suggests that resilience is an integrating concept that allows multiple risks, shocks and stresses and their impacts on ecosystems and vulnerable people to be considered together in the context of development programming, and concludes that a more systematic approach to addressing the multiple risks to development progress is the prize and that combining elements of resilience and risk management will likely be the most pragmatic option.