Financing Community Resilience – Integrating Resilience Dimensions into FfD4 Outcomes

At the 2025 UN Financing for Development (FfD4) Conference in Seville, the international community has a timely opportunity to recalibrate how development financing supports systemic, long-term resilience. This proposed session, titled “Financing Resilience: Integrating Community-Level Resilience Dimensions into FfD4 Outcomes,” will focus on embedding resilience financing into the core of global economic cooperation. It builds on emerging multidimensional frameworks—such as the PEOPLES model and other integrative tools—that define resilience through a holistic lens: encompassing demographic strength, infrastructure, ecosystem health, social and cultural capital, governance, economic vitality, and public health.

Despite growing recognition of these dimensions, current financing strategies tend to be fragmented and siloed, often overlooking the interconnected nature of resilience. As global challenges—from climate volatility and pandemics to food insecurity and conflict—continue to converge, community resilience must become a cross-cutting priority within the financial architecture being shaped at the Fourth Financing for Development Conference (FfD4). This session aims to move the discourse from rhetoric to implementation, exploring how development finance can operationalize resilience across policies, instruments, and metrics.

The session will be framed around four central objectives. First, it will clarify the key community resilience dimensions that financing frameworks should prioritise. Second, it will showcase promising innovations in finance—from ESG-linked investments and social outcome bonds to blended public-private models—that are already supporting community resilience in diverse contexts. Third, the discussion will introduce practical tools for monitoring and evaluation, including internationally recognized indicators and public expenditure tracking systems that can assess how investments align with resilience outcomes. Lastly, the session will identify a concrete path to integrate these priorities into the FfD4 outcome document, ensuring that resilience is reflected not only in language but in financing flows and institutional mandates.

The session will open with a framing overview from the moderator, followed by a high-level panel featuring resilience researchers, development finance experts, and multilateral organisations.

Dr. Eliah Aronoff-Spencer, MD, PhD will deliver a keynote address. He is an Infectious Disease Physician Scientist, and Professor of Medicine and Design at the University of California, San Diego, where he directs the Centre for Health Design. His work is rooted in the principle that resilient health systems must be proactive, adaptive, and accessible, particularly in the face of emerging infectious threats. Through a combination of diagnostic innovation, informatics, and field-based implementation, Dr. Spencer’s research focuses on strengthening health system resilience by ensuring that care and surveillance can reach the most vulnerable and underserved communities.

Panellists will discuss lessons from applying resilience frameworks at national and sub-national levels and share case studies of finance mechanisms that have delivered measurable results. The discussion will also explore the policy coherence required to mainstream resilience through fiscal planning, ODA strategies, and capital markets. An interactive Q&A session will provide participants with the opportunity to share insights, raise challenges, and offer policy recommendations. The session will conclude with a summary of key takeaways and a call to action—focusing on outcome language and institutional commitments that can be advanced through the FfD negotiation process.

Expected outcomes include the formal recognition of community-level resilience as a priority in the Seville outcome document; a statement of intent from governments and financing institutions to allocate a share of financing toward resilience-linked objectives; technical guidance on incorporating resilience into national reviews and budget systems; and the groundwork for launching a catalytic financing mechanism to support integrated resilience initiatives across low- and middle-income countries.

This session is designed to engage finance ministers, development banks, UN agencies, national planning authorities, civil society organisations, and the private sector. By anchoring resilience in the heart of financing strategies, the FfD4 process can demonstrate that the international community is prepared to invest not just in economic recovery, but in the durability, adaptability, and dignity of communities facing compounding global risks.

Speakers

Eliah Aronoff-Spencer, Designing Health together

Ramesh Rao, Director Qualcomm Institute, UC San Diego

Tina George Karippacheril, Practice Leader for Human Development Nigeria @ The World Bank

Derek Lomas, AI & Experience Design

Lisa Danzig, Independent Advisor and Board Director

Registration form

Please complete this form to register for the event. Attendance is free, but registration is required.