John Ulimwengu SEMINAR Developing Resilience to Climate Change and Achieving Food Security in West Africa: Follow up Action from the UN Food Systems Summit Co-Organized by West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) and IFPRI SEP 30, 2021 - 09:00 AM TO 10:30 AM EDT

1. A Measurement Approach for a Resilience
Index: Possible Applications to Climate
Shocks
John M. Ulimwengu
Senior Research Fellow, AFR
International Food Policy Research Institute
Washington, DC | September 29, 2021

2. Commitment 6: Enhancing Resilience to Climate
Variability: Where Do African Countries Stand?
BR Score, 2019 (normalized)
No data
< 0.5 of benchmark
0.5 - 0.99 of benchmark
Above benchmark
• In 2019, 11 countries were on track for
enhanced climate and livelihood resilience—
an improvement since 2017, when only 7
countries achieved the benchmark threshold.
• However, none of the five geographic-
economic regions met the benchmark.

3. WEST AFRICA FOOD SYSTEM RESILIENCE
PROGRAM : THEORY OF CHANGE

4. MEASURING RESILIENCE TO CLIMATE SHOCKS

5. Standard variables
for estimating a
comprehensive
resilience capacity
index
1. Basic Condition Measures: Initial states
Food security (FAO’s four components)
Health index
Assets index
Social capital index
Access to services index
Infrastructure
Ecological eco-services index
2. Disturbance Measures: Shocks and Stressors
2.1. Covariate shocks and stressors
• Drought/flood
• Health shocks
• Political crises
• Market prices
• Trade/policy shocks…
2.2. Idiosyncratic shocks and stressors
• Illness/death
• Loss of income
• Failed crops
• Livestock loss…
3. Response Measures:
Mitigation strategies
Coping strategies
Adaptation strategies
4. Subsequent State(s): Current state
Food security (FAO’s four components)
Health index
Assets index
Social capital index
Access to services index
Infrastructure
Ecological eco-services index
Source: Adapted from Constas and Barrett (2013)

6. 𝐹𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛
𝐷𝑖𝑒𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑦 𝐷𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑦
𝐹𝐶𝑆
= Λ2, Λ3, Λ4 × 𝑅𝐶𝐼 + 𝜀2, 𝜀3, 𝜀4 (1)
𝑅𝐶𝐼 = 𝛽1, 𝛽2, 𝛽3, 𝛽4 ×
𝐴𝐵𝑆
𝐴𝑆𝑇
𝑆𝑆𝑁
𝐴𝐶
+ 𝜀1 (2)
Resilience Index Measurement and Analysis II (RIMA-II)

7. Resilience Capacity | South Sudan
ε=0.18 ε=0.35
ε=0.01
ε=0.09
ε=1.09 ε=0.85 ε=0.75 ε=0.04 ε=-0.44
4. Results
Resilience
BASIC ASSET ADC
SSN
FCS HDDI Meals1 Meals2 Meals3
Pillar variables Weights
Distance to primary school 0.717
Time to reach the health
facility 0.537
Health facility provides
free care 0.467
Respondent satisfied with
quality of health service 0.357
Existence of agricultural
extension workers 0.312
Participation in vocational
training 0.278
Access to a common open
market 0.138
Pillar variables Weights
Predicted no. of
tables 0.998
Predicted no. of
beds 0.998
Predicted no. of
cell phones -0.023
Pillar variables Weights
No. of ag livelihood
activities 0.599
No. of crop types
planted 0.522
No. of nonag
livelihood activities 0.472
Educational
attainment of head 0.230
Info. about natural
disaster 0.034
No. of formal
employers -0.034
Pillar variables Weights
Remittances
from S. Sudan 0.441
Remittances
from outside S.
Sudan 0.441
Conflict Governance
Estimate Resilience capacity
(RC)
1
Using RIMA framework
2
RC: f(BASIC, ASSET, SSN, ADC)
[FCS, HDDI,…]=g(RC)
3
4
Next steps: Programming,
Impact assessment, M&E,
Harmonization.
5

8. Resilience capacity and intervention pillars
0.034
0.073
0.067
0.186
0.000
0.020
0.040
0.060
0.080
0.100
0.120
0.140
0.160
0.180
0.200
Access to basic
services
Assets Social safety nets Adaptive capacity
Elasticity
Pillars
• Pillars do not
have the same
effect on
resilience
capacity

9. Simulation of
livestock disease
• We built up on the previous scenario and make
use of the current prices in the livestock market
of Torit, Easter Equatoria (where this dataset
comes from).
• The average tropical livestock unit endowments
in our data is 3.3; in our simulation, we assume
70% of disruption that approximately can be
valued as 2.5 cows.
0.96
0.98
1
1.02
1.04
1.06
1.08
10% 50% 60% 90% 10% 50% 60% 90% 10% 50% 60% 90%
Training Agricultural inputs Wealth
Relative
RCI
Interventions

10. System Resilience or Component Resilience?
There are three entry points to capture food system resilience in a holistic
approach:
i) national or regional food systems, which comprise multiple value chains
contributing to food security and other outcomes;
ii) individual food value chains ranging from local to global levels, which form the
national and regional food systems, and together lead to the diverse outcomes
of food systems; and
iii) Individual participants: this includes smallholder livelihoods, household food
security, consumers' health etc.
The distinction is important as it determines the types of metrics the project will
use to assess its effectiveness in building resilience.

11. Concluding remarks
▪ Coherence
o Call for alignment of project theory of change,
data collection tools and interventions costs.
▪ Data availability
o Tracking and record cost data for interventions
needs become a standard part of program
implementation
o Building panel datasets