Helen Clark, UNDP Administrator on Friday afternoon says the fast growing size and significance of the corporate sector in China has encouraged the UN agency to develop the strategy as to invite more involvement from the sector as powerful tools for development. [Pierre Chen / China.org.cn]

Taken as a whole, the world's population today is healthier, wealthier, and better educated than ever before. Yet, despite incredible progress, disconcerting realities stubbornly persist.

Many people still live in extreme poverty, even where economies are growing rapidly. More than 20 percent of the world's population lives in states that are considered fragile and highly vulnerable. Global economic and financial systems remain volatile, and armed violence and organized criminal networks are a growing threat to human security in many countries, and women continue to face serious barriers to real empowerment. Meanwhile, our planetary boundaries are being stretched to the limit, and as the world's population increases from the current 7 billion people to a projected almost 9 billion in 2040, the stress on our planet and its resources will continue to increase rapidly if current consumption and production patterns continue.

Our political, social, economic, and technological tools and our policies need to urgently address these challenges, and building resilience is at the very heart of this effort.

Resilience implies the inherent capacity of a system to deal with any external shock, no matter how surprising it is. It is also about being able to face adversity without losing the ability to function as a society. Achieving resilience is a transformative process that builds on the innate strength of individuals, their communities, and institutions to prevent, lessen the impacts of, and learn from the experience of shocks of any type, whether internal or external, natural or man-made. When societies invest time in learning from adversity, they are better prepared to face it in the future.

In building such resilience, the first priority must be prevention, complemented by explicit efforts to reduce societal vulnerabilities and a commitment to maintaining the integrity of communities, institutions, and ecosystems, as these are the very foundations of resilience. As the recent financial crisis showed, not all developed countries have retained systemic resilience to economic shocks.

In 2004, the magnitude-9 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami struck Aceh, Indonesia, causing 4 percent of the total population of around 4 million to lose their lives. When a powerful 7.6 magnitude earthquake hit Aceh this January there were no casualties thanks to an effective government-led publicity campaign and UNDP sponsored disaster preparedness training.

Sustainable development based on resilience also calls for developing the capacity of the poor to overcome challenges, and should be guided by a commitment to national ownership, comprehensive and integrated responses, innovation and learning, and long-term strategic engagement.

Institutions, particularly structures and systems of governance, provide frameworks for building resilience. But state fragility is a function of not only weak institutions but also of social systems under strain. A resilient state is anchored in a cohesive society. Stark inequalities and inequities undermine that.

Building social protection systems is a key investment in resilience, as they shield the most vulnerable from the worst effects of shocks and help prevent irreversible development setbacks.

Resilient societies are also those that exhibit social and civic trust, thus enabling people to feel included and encouraged to work together.

It takes hard work to establish these attributes. It is even more difficult to do so in those wrecked by conflict and violence. Yet, without such capacities for tolerance, fragility can overwhelm the institutions and systems of a society.

When world leaders come together in Rio de Janeiro in June to discuss sustainable development, resilience must be an important part of the discussion.

By collectively committing to building resilience, the international community offers a chance for people everywhere to be equipped with the capacity to cope, to act, and to rise to the daunting challenges of the 21st century.

The author is the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and the former prime minister of New Zealand.

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