Key highlights: Towards a research-action agenda for resilience and development in southern Africa. This report outlines key outcomes and highlights emerging from discussions held during the second Resilience Action Dialogue in June 2019.

Report from GRP’s Partners Meeting held in Addis Ababa in 2019.

The Farmer session co-organised by took place as a side-event to the UNFCCC Africa Climate Week, 18-22 March 2019, Accra, Ghana. The session aimed to bring forward the role of farmer-driven (small-scale) initiatives in building positive, food secure and climate resilient futures in Africa.

The session “Colliding climate and conflict risks: building resilience from an integrated approach in fragile and most vulnerable places” took place within a GRP/FAO side event “Stepping Up Action on Building Climate Resilient Agriculture and Food Systems in Africa” preceding the UN Africa Climate Week, Ghana, 18-22 March 2019.

The purpose of this ACW affiliated event “Stepping Up Action on Building Climate Resilient Agriculture and Food Systems in Africa” was to identify the opportunities for increased ambition and African voice for climate action on agriculture and food systems that can be advanced at the UNSG’s 2019 Climate Action Summit and COP25.

In March 2019, the Global Resilience Partnership (GRP) convened a group of global experts, experienced practitioners and influential stakeholders at the Bellagio Rockefeller Centre in Italy. The group was tasked with identifying strategies and concrete actions of how to build resilient food systems in vulnerable and fragile regions1. The objective of the meeting was to identify priority areas that can impact global action to influence local realities in a context of urgency.

The 24th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP24) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) took place in Katowice, Poland from 2-14 December 2018. GRP played an active role in convening, facilitating, and co-organizing various COP24 events.

This document provides the outcomes of the Action Event at COP 24, Scaling up investments in climate resilience to meet the needs of vulnerable people. This was the Resilience Roundtable of Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action.

Violent conflict has increased after decades of relative decline. Direct deaths in war, numbers of displaced populations, military spending, among others, have all surged since the beginning of the century (World Bank, 2018). Fragile and conflict affected states show the slowest progress towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (ODI, 2018), demonstrating that conflict could be one of the biggest hurdles in achieving our 2030 aspirations. More specifically, the recent increase in number of people suffering from acute food insecurity has been attributed to an increase in conflict and extreme weather events (FSIN, 2018).

In an increasingly turbulent and unpredictable world new approaches to development are needed to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We face a new reality: disasters and shocks are occurring more frequently and chronic stresses are lasting longer. We need to ensure that all people, especially in developing countries, have prosperous lives and are resilient to these shocks and stresses. Recognising this challenge, the UK, Sweden, Germany and Uganda, with the Global Resilience Partnership, sponsored a side event at the High Level Political Forum.