Resilience: why does it matter to the humanitarian community?

The humanitarian caseload continues to remain large in the Sahel due to a combination of both
acute and chronic factors such as climate change, conflict and population growth. Some 16
million people across the region are conservatively projected to be at risk for 2014.1
These
numbers are all the more concerning given the absence, for a second year running, of extreme
weather events. Fortunately, humanitarian agencies are responding increasingly successfully to
the caseload. Donors too continue to respond generously to the financing needs. And
Governments in the region are increasingly engaged in policies to target the most vulnerable
communities. Yet we have not started sustainably reversing the overall growth in this
humanitarian caseload and millions of households are becoming progressively less resilient as
new crises hit faster than they can recover from the last one. Humanitarian actors can do more to
build resilience and reduce the future humanitarian case load. The new 3-year Sahel
Humanitarian Response Plan 2014-2016 will contain a strong resilience building theme. Much
earlier response to warning indicators in order to protect the erosion of coping capacities is at
the heart of this strategy. Reducing the length of recovery times and more transfer of knowledge
and know-how to local actors are other important components. Chronic problems need
structural solutions however and the most influential actors on the future humanitarian case-load
are, ultimately, Governments and their development partners. Beyond saving lives and
bolstering the coping capacity of the households with whom we are working therefore, a new
mission for the humanitarian community in the Sahel is to engage, partner with, and influence,
these development actors much more systematically than in the past in order to build greater
resilience of this fragile community. A number of fault lines will need to be bridged in order to
deliver such an integrated response.