The EU and Resilience

Core EU Document Document Overview 1.The need to address chronic vulnerability 2.The resilience paradigm 3.The EU’s experience in dealing with resilience and food crises in Africa –Supporting the Horn of Africa’s Resilience –AGIR Sahel: the EU Global Alliance for Resilience Initiative 4.Learning from Experience –Anticipating the crises by assessing risks –Focusing on prevention and preparedness –Enhancing the response to crises 5.10 Steps to increase resilience in food insecure and disaster prone countries Communication on: The EU Approach to Resilience: Learning from Food Security Crises The EU Approach to Resilience: Learning from Food Security Crises

The Resilience Paradigm ‘Resilience is the ability of an individual, a household, a community, a country or a region to withstand, to adapt, and to quickly recover from stresses and shocks’ resilience as defined by the EU

3 Common Elements for replication in vulnerable developing countries 1.Anticipating crises by assessing risks Early warning systems Need for systematic linkages with other available data (e.g. child under-nutrition) Should be reflected in country-owned policies and processes 2.Focusing on prevention and preparedness Underlying causes of vulnerability need to be addressed Best practice needs to be disseminated Governance structured for disaster management needs to be enhanced Opportunities for public-private partnerships Food crises – an integrated approach to tackle the root causes of food insecurity – food availability, access to food products 3.Enhancing crisis response Preparation of joint analytical frameworks by humanitarian and development actors Need for increase to support the early recovery phase Cross border capacity of regional organisations needs to be strengthened Identifying short-term interventions with a long-term impact Consistent approach in conflict/insecure areas

10 Steps to Increase Resilience in Food Insecure and Disaster Prone Countries 1.Resilience can only be built bottom up 2.Action to strengthen resilience needs to be based on sound methodologies for risk and vulnerability assessments 3.In countries facing recurrent crises, increasing resilience will be a central aim of EU external assistance 4.The Commission will systematically include resilience as an element in its Humanitarian Implementation Plans 5.Flexibility will be key to responding to the needs of disaster-affected countries xxx

10 Steps to Increase Resilience in Food Insecure and Disaster Prone Countries 6.When working to improve resilience in fragile or conflict-affected states, the EU will pursue and approach that also address security aspects and their impact on the vulnerability of populations 7.The EU will seek to replicate existing initiatives such as SHARE and AGIR, as well as successful project on Disaster Risk Reduction. 8.The EU will promote innovative approaches to risk management. 9.For countries facing recurrent crises, the EU will work with host governments, other donors, regional and international organisation and other stakeholders to create platforms at country level for ensuring timely exchange of information and coordination of short, medium and long term humanitarian and development actions to strengthen resilience 10.The EU will promote resilience in international for a including the G8, G20 the Committee on World Food Security(CFS), the Rio Conventions, the process for revision of the Millennium Development Goals, the development of Sustainable Development Goals and discussions on the follow-up to the Hyogo Framework for Action of Resilience will feature as a key theme in its partnerships with organisations such as FAO, IFAD and WFP, as well as UNISDR, the World Bank, and civil society organisations. xxx

EU – next steps Council Conclusions and Action Plan – putting the communication into action Funding Strategies Humanitarian DIPECHO – disaster preparedness, community based Humanitarian Implementation Plans – include questions on resilience The may be strengthened following the Commission consultation ‘fit for purpose’ Development Food security/livelihood planning/sustainable agriculture Climate resilience Resilience of local MSMEs

Resilience Communication – a critique Over focus on food security? Case study learning focuses on local programming in the Sahel (is it really replicable) There is no reference to social projection (as a means to withstand shocks) Little reference to cost-effectiveness and financial trade-offs

Taking it further…. Questions To what is extent is resilience an integral part of your programming? Attitude of other tools? Do you have the tools available to adequately integrate the resilience agenda (what tools are needed?) Does anyone have expertise in this area? Challenges foreseen for humanitarian actors? Resilience, Disaster Risk Reduction, Climate Change adaption…..are these the same thing?