Global Resilience Partnership

The Global Resilience Partnership (GRP) GRP is a partnership of public and private organisations joining forces towards a resilient, sustainable and prosperous future for vulnerable people and places. The partnership consider resilience as prerequisite for understanding the drivers and impacts of complex issues to help communities, governments, development and humanitarian organizations, and the private sector to identify and enable novel solutions. GRP is founded on knowledge excellence, inclusive decision making and a commitment to finding new ways of dealing with intractable issues. Stability and assumptions of linear, incremental change are history. Our future will be defined by three drivers: increasing complexity, global inter-connectivity, and surprise. There remains a challenge to increase the attention and investment in resilience, and to further our knowledge on what policies, practices and innovations are needed to build resilience. This is the gap GRP aims to fill. Our approach A new approach is required to enable people, households, communities, countries, and/or systems to cope with unforeseen events and transform in the face of sudden or protracted crises. At GRP, we believe resilience is about having the capacity to persist, adapt, and transform in the face of change. To deliver these outcomes, we have developed a set of principles that guide GRP’s approach to resilience. These are: 1) Embrace Complexity. Working to identify the root causes of complex development challenges, and how these can be addressed within the political, economic, ecological, and social systems in which they exist. 2) Recognise Constant Change. Risks and stresses are becoming increasingly unpredictable, uncertain, and unavoidable. Systems that have the capacity to navigate dynamic and uncertain futures are required. 3) Enable Inclusive Decision Making. Putting people and communities, especially women and marginalised groups, at the centre of decisions and empowering them to help develop equitable and sustainable solutions. 4) Enhance Ecosystems Integrity. Approaches to development must ensure a good life for all while maintaining the integrity of the Earth’s ecosystems. 5) Promote Flexibility and Learning. A rigid or fixed solution will not build resilience for change; approaches need to be adaptive and responsive, constantly learning from what does and does not work. 6) Leverage Innovation and Opportunity. Developing new solutions and innovations that engage with the complexity of development challenges will not only help build resilience but will be essential to transforming to sustainable and just development.