NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) aim to address the root causes of poverty, and underline the universal need for an inclusive and resilient development. Investing in gender equality and women’s empowerment in policies and programmes are pre-requisites for effective delivery of the SDGs.

The concept of ‘resilience’ is becoming increasingly utilized in development programming. It is commonly understood to encompass a broad-based multi-sectoral development that includes the many ways in which individuals (men and women, boys and girls) and livelihood systems mitigate, adapt, recover, and learn from shocks and stresses; the longer-term goal being to reduce vulnerability and increase well-being. In the context of development, ’resilience’ hence bridges humanitarian responses and longer-term development. The frequent exposure to multiple and interlinked resilience challenges, slows down development progress and threaten sustainability of programmatic interventions.