Rising crises, shocks, and inequalities are creating new challenges. Resilience offers pathways toward more just and sustainable futures for people and the planet.

Resilience is not just about bouncing back—it is about building the capacity to cope with shocks, adapt to change, and transform systems away from undesirable trajectories, while finding the right balance between these capacities.

The return on resilience investment far exceeds its initial cost. Investment in resilience protects and strengthens the social, economic, and ecological foundations that support long-term human well-being and prosperity.

Resilience is a cycle that demands continuous experimentation, learning, and innovation. Understanding resilience dynamics and the alternations between phases of rapid change and relative stability opens pathways to new and better futures.

Diversity is a cornerstone of resilience—providing options for persistence and sources of innovation to enable adaptation and transformation. It includes biodiversity as well as diversity in knowledge systems, cultures, practices, social structures, institutions, and livelihoods.

Resilience grows through relationships—between people, with nature, and within landscapes and ecosystems. These connections strengthen the low of resources, knowledge, trust, and care.

Almost every decision involves trade-offs, and addressing these across scales, interests, and generations is vital to avoid unintended harms, prevent conflict, and build just, lasting resilience.

Agency is key to activating core resilience capacities. Supporting and developing agency means enabling people and institutions to take intentional and grounded action.

Building resilience requires directly addressing social inequalities, power imbalances, and historical injustices. Otherwise, resilience interventions risk reinforcing the very systems that cause vulnerability.