This webinar was organised with support from the European Union.

22 October 2019 – 12.00 - 13.30 CEST

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Speakers:

• Normann Steinmaier, Workstream Lead, Preparedness and Resilience Working Group (PRWG) of the global Food Security Cluster (gFSC); and Deputy Humanitarian Director, Welthungerhilfe 
• Sylvie Wabbes, Agronomist and Resilience Advisor, FAO
• Thomas Pitaud, Programme specialist, UNDP

Moderator:

• Laura Tiberi, Emergency and Rehabilitation Officer, FAO

The Preparedness and Resilience Working Group (PRWG) aims to guide and support in-country Food Security Cluster (gFSC) on necessary preparedness and resilience-building activities to contribute to bridge the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus, as strengthening the resilience of vulnerable households, communities and systems is central to achieving food security and improving nutrition in the face of shocks and stressors.

Efforts to strengthen resilience, understood as the ability of a system to anticipate, resist, absorb, accommodate and recover from the effects of a hazard, should primarily target those who are food insecure or at risk of becoming so. In most cases, this means individuals and groups living in extreme poverty or close to the poverty line in rural areas, as well as those living in fragile environments where conflict, natural disasters or other major events can disrupt food systems or impede access to adequate and nutritious food for at least part of the population.

Over the past decade, strengthening resilience has emerged as an important means to prevent, mitigate and prepare for risks associated with a range of threats to development. Resilience is also a common thread across the three United Nations (UN) pillars of development, human rights, and peace and security – and is reflected in many important global policy agendas and frameworks that acknowledge risks and their effects that can hinder the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Whilst the global policy frameworks articulate the importance of resilience in achieving sustainable development in various sectors, contexts and scales, they are largely implemented in institutional silos, focusing on specific types and drivers of risks, be they violent conflict, natural and man-made hazards, epidemics or displacement, among others. The interlinkages between risks and their compounding effects are often not considered.

To strengthen coherence in UN resilience-building efforts at the regional, country and local levels, the Chief Executive Board (CEB) of the UN decided that a UN resilience framework was needed, covering all types of hazards and risks and promoting greater horizontal collaboration and joined-up efforts across the UN System and partners.

Against this background, the webinar specifically aims to:

• Introduce to the gFSC coordinators the UN Guidance on Resilience that provides a UN-wide guidance on building resilience for delivering the 2030 Agenda, embedded in the UN Reform and the UN Secretary-General’s Prevention Agenda;
• Promote within the gFSC a common understanding of resilience that is based on shared principles and to offer operational and practical guidance for resilience building to the UN System and its partners;
• Enhance coherence among existing normative frameworks and documents, and to integrate a resilience lens into existing work of the gFSC in line with the UN Guidance on Resilience intends to provide an UN-wide guidance on building resilience for delivering the 2030 Agenda.