Risk and Resilience
Featured blog
Development strategy under the permanent emergency: Building continuity amid crisis
Key takeawaysThe world has entered a period of permanent emergency defined by continual overlapping crises.Development strategy must be built to address persistent disruption, not temporary shocks.Continuity should be the key priority. Strong institutions, infrastructure, and productive sectors help countries keep progressing during crises.Conventional development strategy assumes that crises are interruptions. Wars end. Commodity prices stabilize. Supply chains recover. Political tensions ease.
Women as shock absorbers: Gendered costs of the global fuel and fertilizer crisis
Key takeawaysWomen and girls in many countries are bearing the brunt of rising fuel and fertilizer prices triggered by the Iran war.Higher costs strain agrifood systems and exacerbate existing gender inequalities, further limiting women’s access to inputs, income, and food security.Gender-blind policy responses widen gender gaps.
Building smallholder farmers’ resilience through index insurance in Kenya
Farmers in Kenya are facing growing impacts of climate change, including prolonged droughts, erratic rainfall, and sudden floods. Approximately 70%-80% of the country’s land area is classified as arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs), and roughly 98% of the agricultural production systems are rainfed. This makes cropping and livestock systems highly sensitive to changing climatic patterns. Severe droughts have repeatedly devastated livelihoods, including a 2008-2009 event that affected nearly 10 million people and killed more than 643,000 livestock.
Food and Nutrition Crises Burgeon in Face of Conflict, Funding Cuts: GRFC Mid-Year Update Released
Hunger and food crisis have reached catastrophic levels in multiple places around the world, according to the Global Report on Food Crises Mid-Year Update. Famine has been confirmed in the Gaza Strip and the Sudan, with parts of South Sudan at risk of famine and Yemen, Haiti, and Mali experiencing catastrophic levels of hunger.
In all, 1.4 million people faced IPC Level 5 (Catastrophe) food insecurity and hunger as of August 2025.
Using Local Knowledge to Enhance Food Systems Resilience
With food crises on the rise, with an estimated 295.3 million people facing high levels of acute food insecurity in 2024. In the face of these stark hunger levels, policymakers, humanitarian organizations, development practitioners, and private sector actors urgently need knowledge about how to effectively enhance the resilience of local and regional food systems.