#1 : Resilience is achieved at high levels of welfare, though this threshold can be reduced through public policies and programmes.

In a number of Low and Middle Income Countries, resilience - being able to avoid impoverishment in the face of climate (or other) shocks or stressors - is achieved at levels of wellbeing and with assets and capacities very similar to those allowing sustained escapes from poverty. This level at which resilience can be achieved may be reduced by investment in public services and disaster risk management in countries where that is politically and financially feasible. If there is adequate public investment in system resilience for disaster risk management, and other potential sources of resilience – CSA, economic (including energy) diversification, universal health care and/or health insurance, and more general built in system resilience capacities – this may compensate for a lack of household level resilience or complement household efforts. Investment in education, for example, helps households diversify more rapidly and take advantage of opportunities for enterprise or migration.

To know more: Zambian poverty dynamics and climate resilience | Climate shocks and poverty persistence

#2 Tackling chronic poverty and supporting upward mobility requires layered, climate-resilient ‘growth from below’.

Social assistance is one part of the solution and can be more effective when combined with human and economic development, through to financial ladders including savings and insurance, and open cities to facilitate in and out-migration to support investments. ‘Growth from below’— which involves small investments by households in micro-enterprises, smallholder agriculture, the rural non-farm economy and the urban informal sector— remains critical. Within this, climate-smart agriculture, with its emphasis on diversification and investments in irrigation and other mechanisms, can support resilience-building. Such examples of poverty reduction and climate resilience strategies should be more consistently integrated within National Development Plans. Equally critical is strengthening support to the informal economies through measures that increase productivity and guard against risks— all these interventions to raise incomes of the poorest households is perfectly feasible within planetary boundaries but requires wealthier people to consume less material goods.

To know more: Chronic poverty report on growth | Inclusive and sustainable economic transformation

#3 Poverty reduction programming should place greater emphasis on preventing downward mobility and impoverishment.

Part of the response needs to include insuring people in and near poverty against major risks such as asset loss (e.g. from theft, climate-related disasters or conflict). This includes crop, livestock, health and credit insurance, which should not be viewed as an alternative but rather as a complement to social assistance. Social assistance also needs to address gendered risks such as intrahousehold conflict leading to separation or divorce—linking affected women to health and legal support, keeping children in school, and promoting women's economic diversification through tailored financial services. These efforts moreover need to expand coverage in urban areas where the impoverishment highlighted by the pandemic needs much more attention. Such responses need to balance anticipatory action with responses during and recovery in the aftermath of crises—recovery continues to be under-emphasised in policy making and resource allocation. It is also increasingly important to develop efforts to reduce both poverty and hunger given their mutually reinforcing relationship amplified by climate change. Climate finance offers an important entry point to integrate development and environmental objectives, but must shift towards gender-sensitive, poverty-targeted, locally-led programs rather than one-off projects.

To know more: Chronic poverty report on pandemic poverty | Sustaining escapes from poverty

#4: Building climate resilience needs to go hand-in-hand with peacebuilding in many high poverty countries, by embedding social cohesion and conflict sensitivity into policies and programs.

Programs should develop activities with strong peacebuilding components, which are built on a clear understanding of the country’s political settlement, bring together diverse stakeholders and perspectives, and ensure longer-term relief and recovery linked to a process of progressive social and political change. Social cohesion should be a core objective of this—with efforts to reduce inequalities and accept the plurality of citizenship being key to sustained peace and undergirding new or reshaped political settlements. At the same time, given contexts of polycrisis, we need to move away from fire-fighting singular hazards. We must focus instead on responding to multiple, intersecting crises through building multilateral partnerships and supporting multi-sectoral policies and programs that address equity (to ensure that the poorest people do not get left or pushed behind) as well at risk (to prevent new sources of impoverishment).

To know more: Good practices and strategies to reduce poverty in conflict-affected contexts | Ending extreme poverty amidst fragility, conflict and violence

#5: Special measures are needed to support climate-resilient poverty reduction for people experiencing intersecting and compounding inequalities. 

Especially in crises contexts, there may be large numbers of people in need, and so it is important to consider gradations of vulnerability and intersections with inequalities due to wealth, gender, area of residence, disability, displacement status and other markers. Programming in turn needs to move beyond a sole or primary focus on demographic markers to consider geographic or spatial dimensions of deprivation during times of crises. For example, rural women living in poor households may experience heightened difficulty during floods due to limited mobility and exclusion from decision-making due to adverse gender norms, inadequate infrastructure in remote areas, and deprivations due to poverty—all of which increase vulnerability and limit recovery prospects. It is important to ensure that such groups are empowered through bottom-up interventions, provided choices in top-down programs, presented with low-cost preventative mitigation measures and options during crises, and supported through accountable, GEDSI-responsive governance systems.

To know more: Women’s agency amid shocks | Vulnerability in Afghanistan before and during the shift in power

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