http://www.fao.org/resilience RIMA is an innovative quantitative approach that estimates resilience to food insecurity and generates the evidence for more effectively assisting vulnerable populations. RIMA allows explaining why and how some households cope with shocks and stressor better than others do and provides rigorous framework for humanitarian and long-term development initiatives to build food secure and resilient livelihoods. RIMA-II improves the RIMA model originally developed in 2008, providing a more comprehensive estimation of resilience and clearer policy indications © FAO: http://www.fao.org

1. Resilience Index
Measurement and Analysis
(RIMA)
Resilience Policies and Analysis team
Agricultural Development Economics Division
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
FAO-RIMA@fao.org

2. Outline
Resilience measurement
at FAO
RIMA-II
Way forward
1
2
3

3. Resilience measurement at FAO
Photo: FAO

4. RIMAmodel
RIMA is an innovative quantitative approach
that estimates resilience to food insecurity and
generates the evidence for more effectively
assisting vulnerable populations.
RIMA allows explaining why and how some
households cope with shocks and stressor
better than others do and provides rigorous
framework for humanitarian and long-term
development initiatives to build food secure and
resilient livelihoods.

5. Definingresilience
RIMA perfectly suits several definitions of
resilience:
• The ability to prevent disasters and crises as well as to
anticipate, absorb, accommodate or recover from them
in a timely, efficient and sustainable manner (FAO, 2013)
• The capacity of a household to bounce back to a
previous level of well-being (for instance food security)
after a shock (Alinovi, Mane & Romano, 2009)
• The capacity that ensures adverse stressors and shocks
do not have long-lasting adverse development
consequences (Resilience Measurement Technical
Working Group of the Food Security Information
Network, 2014)

6. RIMA is focused on households
Whyhousehold-level?
• It is the unit within
which the most
important decisions to
manage uncertain
events are made
• It is the unit that
benefits the positive
effects of policies and
suffers for negative
effects of shocks

7. Conceptualframework
R0
Access to
Basic Services
Assets
Social Safety
Nets
Adaptive
capacity
Y0 Y1
R0
Access to
Basic Services
Assets
Social Safety
Nets
Adaptive
capacity
Shock
Coping
strategies
• Consumption
smoothing
• Asset selling
• New livelihood
adoption
ΔY
ΔRes
t0 t1
Other HH time invariant
characteristics
Other HH time varying
characteristics
Other HH time invariant
characteristics
Other HH time varying
characteristics

8. Whatquestionsanswers?
Who is most in need?
Where should investment focus in terms of
geographical location?
Which dimensions of resilience need to be
supported?
To what extent have interventions
increased or decreased target populations’
resilience?
What are the main determinants of food
security recover?

9. RIMA-II
Photo: FAO

10. What’snewinRIMA-II
RIMA-II improves the RIMA model originally developed
in 2008, providing a more comprehensive estimation of
resilience and clearer policy indications
RIMA-II estimates household resilience to food
insecurity with a comprehensive pack which includes
direct measure and indirect measurements as well
as long and short term measurement approaches.
Shocks are considered exogenous and included into a
regression model for estimating their impact on food
security and on resilience
Food security variables are considered exogenous
indicators of resilience capacity

11. Shocks
RIMA-II takes into account several types of shocks
that can affect households
Idiosyncratic shocks, such as livestock death, job
loss and illness of a household member. These
shocks are all directly reported by households in
surveys.
Covariate shocks, which in turn are divided into:
Climate shocks, such as droughts,
floods, rainfalls and other natural
hazards, registered through GIS;
Conflict-related shocks, such as war,
murders and social disorders

12. Direct measure
Direct measure provides descriptive information on household
resilience capacity.
RIMA-II employs latent variable models (Multiple Indicators Multiple
Causes – MIMIC) to estimate the Resilience Capacity Index and the
Resilience Structure Matrix.
It is a valuable policy analysis tool to inform funding and policy
decisions, as it allow to target and rank households from most to less
resilient.
RIMA-II

13. Resiliencepillars
Access to basic
services (ABS)
Assets (AST)Adaptive capacity (AC)
Social safety nets
(SSN)

14. Resiliencepillars
Resilience pillars Definition
Adaptive Capacity
Adaptive Capacity is the ability of a household to adapt to a
new situation and develop new strategies of livelihood
Social Safety Nets
The Social Safety Nets pillar measures the ability of households
to access timely and reliable assistance provided by
international agencies, charities, and NGOs, as well as help from
relatives and friends.
Assets
Assets comprise both productive and non-productive assets.
Examples of indicators include land, livestock and durables.
Other tangible assets such as house, vehicle, and household
amenities reflect living standards and wealth of a household.
Access to Basic
Services
Access to Basic Services shows the ability of a household to
meet basic needs, and access and effective use of basic services;
e.g., access to schools, health facilities; infrastructures and
markets.

15. Indirect measure
RIMA-II estimates the main determinants of food recovery (i.e.
establish causal relationships between observed variables and well
being indicators) and it moves the resilience analysis in the long
term perspective.
The indirect measure can be adopted as a predictor tool for
interventions that build and strengthen resilience to food insecurity.
It provides new depth and breadth to resilience analysis and permits
decision makers and other stakeholders to better understand the
dynamics of positive trends in resilience and thus develop strategies
that will yield positive results.
RIMA-II

16. RIMA-II

17. RIMAanalysisintheworld
RIMA – Finalized Analysis
Senegal, Niger, Burkina Faso,
Mali, Sudan, South Sudan,
Kenya, Somalia, West Bank
and Gaza Strip, Nigeria,
Uganda, Tanzania and Malawi
RIMA – Ongoing Analysis
Senegal, Mauritania, Chad,
Ethiopia, Lesotho, West Bank
and Gaza Strip
Mauritania
Chad
Ethiopia
Tanzania
Malawi
Lesotho
Senegal
Mali
Niger
Sudan
South
Sudan
Kenya
Nigeria
West Bank & Gaza Strip

18. ResilienceMarker
RIMA-II analysis will be supported by a brand-new tool,
the Resilience Marker.
The Resilience Marker can effectively operationalize
the concept of resilience by predicting and evaluating
the expected impact on resilience of humanitarian
and development interventions.
The process is conducted through a participatory
approach that will include the actors involved in the
designing, implementation and evaluation of projects.

19. Wayforward
Effectively contributing to resilience
programming in priority regions and
selected countries
Developing capacity to conduct resilience
analysis at scale
Consolidating RIMA as one of the main
corporate tools for resilience programming
FAO will strengthen RIMA’s role in resilience
measurement and policy making by:

20. THANK YOU!
Contact us:
FAO-RIMA@fao.org
Marco.Derrico@fao.org