THE WAY FORWARD FOR BUILDING RESILIENCE

In the coming years and decades, the world will continue to be hit by shocks. Among the shocks that we can anticipate are climate change, con-flict and displacement, natural disasters, food price shocks, and health shocks. But the range of possible shocks that pose threats to food and nutri-tion security is not static. Some shocks are evolving and becoming more fre-quent or intense, such as extreme weather events. At the same time, new shocks may emerge, such as novel threats to human, plant, and animal health, and others that are still unknown. Resilience means the capacity not only to bounce back from shocks, but also to get ahead of them. Given that normal conditions for the poor are often dire, people need the capacity to transform and improve after a shock rather than merely returning to a dismal original state. When resilience goes beyond recovery to include a capacity for transformation, it may involve changes in eco-nomic, social, and ecological structures that allow for greater long-term well-being. This capacity for transformation is especially important in terms of food and nutrition security, given that more than 800 million people still suffer from chronic hunger and 165 million children younger than five years of age are stunted (Black et al. 2013). The contributors to this book have shed light on the role of resilience as an organizing framework that the international community could use to effec-tively tackle these challenges. Indeed, many development agencies are begin-ning to see the value of resilience as a framework that can link humanitarian efforts with longer-term development. Resilience may offer opportunities for mainstreaming various shock adaptation and mitigation strategies into broader development initiatives. In other words, it allows us to look at devel-opment more holistically (Chapter 3, Hoddinott)