BUILDING RESILIENCE The current magnitude of the drought crisis induced by the El Niño, coupled with the numerous economic and social stressors that exacerbate insecurity at country and regional level in the Southern Africa region, call for a two-pronged approach to assist vulnerable populations. On the one hand national and international partners have an obligation to keep addressing the most acute humanitarian needs; on the other, however, increased effort are required at all levels to support national authorities to break the vicious cycle of recurrent crises and increasing vulnerability that hinder economic growth and perpetuate chronic poverty among affected communities. A multi-sectoral approach to building the resilience of affected communities can bridge the existing gap between humanitarian and development interventions to ensure that shortterm actions lay the groundwork for medium to longterm programming, and contribute to reducing the financial burden of responding to recurrent crises and missed development opportunities. As most of rural livelihoods in Southern Africa are dependent on the extractive use of natural resources, one of the key areas for resilience building is the agricultural sector. In particular activities aiming at increasing productivity and introducing adequate risk management strategies are to be prioritized. For example, support to income diversification, introduction of Climate Smart Agriculture, Conservation Agriculture (CA), and the application of Good Agricultural Practices; support to and strengthening of the introduction of weather index insurance for small-scale farmers; and support to the creation of group savings as a risk reduction mechanism to enable investments in productive assets. In addition to the productive sectors, resilient basic services are also fundamental to support households and communities not to fall into negative coping strategies in the face of external shocks. Building systems at all levels (regional as well as national and subnational) for the delivery of social services that incorporate early warning and preparedness to recurrent shocks while maintaining the flexibility and capacity to scale up/ 28 adjust in times of need to address the root causes of vulnerability are key components of resilience programming. This requires both the design of physical service infrastructure that is resistant to drought or flood (and as much as possible reliant on renewable energies to operate) and the training of human resources to be able to quickly respond once a crisis hits. In addition, resilient social protection systems are a key element in breaking the vicious cycle of crises and shocks that drive affected communities into a vulnerability pathway. Nearly all countries in the region have established some form of social safety net, which have helped to increase the resilience of the most vulnerable people. Food and in-kind transfers are the dominant component of total safety net spending in the region (27 per cent on average), according to the World Bank. Among cash-based transfers, social pensions account for the highest share of expenditures. The region is home to some of the largest scale social pension schemes introduced to date. Swaziland’s school meal program is the biggest school feeding programme in the world, per capita, covering 26 per cent of the population, with Lesotho coming in fifth, covering 21 per cent. The impact of the current El Niño event also points to insufficient mitigation and response capacity in many countries. Despite various national preparedness measures, most of the countries in the region have demonstrated to be inadequately equipped to meet the needs of the affected populations and unable to translate global weather forecasts related to El Niño and La Niña into locally usable information. Strengthening or where necessary creating at country and regional level systems to manage risks of climate variability in the face of weak national and local governance capacities would contribute to limiting the recurrence of acute food insecurity and livelihood crisis that may result from future impacts of extreme weather events. It would support and strengthen governments to be more responsive and to be able to take quick decisions through advocacy in order to avoid delays on response and to ensure that early actions are taken in due time.