Feed the Future Learning Agenda Literature Review: Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations

The stated aim of Feed the Future is to reduce poverty and chronic malnutrition by investing in improving the resilience of vulnerable populations. International and humanitarian development actors are increasingly adopting resilience as an organizing concept for food security policy and program development. This new perspective has emerged in response to the increasing frequency and severity of natural and human-caused disasters resulting from climate change, ecosystem fragility, geopolitical instability, and economic volatility. The international humanitarian community recognizes that large-scale emergency responses have saved millions of lives but have not increased the capacity of vulnerable populations to withstand shocks and stresses. Multiple studies have demonstrated that the cost of immediate damage to life and property, coupled with the resources spent on emergency response, is several times greater than effective disaster prevention. In December 2012, USAID laid the foundation for the agency's future investments in resilience by issuing policy and program guidance for resilience programming that calls for layering, integrating, and sequencing of humanitarian and development assistance. The paper is structured around four large themes related to resilience, each of which encompasses specific questions outlined in the Feed the Future Learning Agenda. The first theme, strengthening household capacities to withstand and recover from shocks, entails both ex ante and ex post aspects of risk management. This includes asset strategies, safety nets for transitory shocks, insurance, and evidence gaps. The second theme, risk management and the role of safety nets, examines the potential of safety nets to help households manage risks. This includes evidence on risk taking, liquidity, regularity and certainty of safety net transfers, size of the transfer, and the role of FFW and CCT in helping participants manage risks. The interaction between formal and informal safety nets and risk reduction strategies in conflict zones are also discussed. The third theme, market access and value chains, explores the potential of market access to foster resilience of vulnerable households. This includes constraints to improving access to markets, overview of interventions to address constraints, value chain deepening "pull" interventions with positive impact, and experience with social protection and other "push" type interventions. The fourth theme, incorporating the poor and vulnerable into economic growth strategies, examines the evidence on incorporating the poor and vulnerable into economic growth strategies. This includes evidence gaps and broader questions for the theme. Overall, the paper provides a comprehensive assessment of existing evidence and gaps in knowledge for the theme of improving resilience of vulnerable populations. It aims to inform policy and maximize the impact and sustainability of investments in this emerging area.