How do poor families manage to have enough to eat even in very difficult circumstances? When faced with shocks and economic stress, why do some families bounce back more quickly than others? The EC-FAO Food Security Programme has developed a “Resilience Tool” to help policy makers understand what makes families more resilient to crises.

The tool provides a framework for understanding the most effective combination of short and long term strategies for lifting families out of cycles of poverty and hunger. It looks at the root causes of household vulnerability instead of trying to predict future crises or disasters. It also considers how household food security links to the entire food system.

“We need to understand the reality of how households cope and strengthen them, instead of trying to predict their vulnerability to future events which are difficult to foresee, ” remarked Luca Alinovi, a senior economist at FAO.