The Expression “Resilience Innovative Facility”
The expression “Resilience Innovative Facility” is not a universally standardized concept, but it appears in certain contexts related to innovation, sustainable development, and crisis management. It can be interpreted as an “innovation mechanism for resilience”, that is, a framework, program, or fund designed to support the adaptive capacity and resilience of organizations, communities, or territories facing crises (climatic, economic, health, or security-related).
These mechanisms rely on technological, social, organizational, and inclusive innovation to create contextual and endogenous solutions that help reduce vulnerability and enhance the ability to recover after a shock.
A Multi-Stakeholder Mechanism
With an unprecedented multi-actor dimension, a Resilience Innovative Facility (RIF) is an innovation-oriented mechanism (if we define innovation here as the ability to transform people’s daily lives) designed to conceive, finance, and deploy solutions capable of strengthening community resilience to environmental, economic, and social shocks.
For this introductory presentation, we summarize the vision of RIFs in four main, non-exhaustive objectives:
- Finance and support innovative projects that contribute to strengthening resilience (for instance in agriculture, energy, health, or education).
- Test and deploy new solutions adapted to fragile or rapidly changing contexts.
- Accelerate the dissemination of proven innovations in high-risk environments.
- Create partnership frameworks (among governments, businesses, NGOs, and donors) to pool efforts and foster collaboration.
Operational Applications of This Vision
We find practical implementations of this vision in several domains:
- Climate Change: Innovation funds for climate resilience (e.g., agricultural adaptation, resilient infrastructure).
- Humanitarian Development: Mechanisms to test new approaches to humanitarian crises and forced displacement.
- Finance: Innovative insurance and microfinance products to protect vulnerable communities.
- Governance and Digital Transformation: Digital platforms and data science tools to anticipate and respond to crises.
Below are a few concrete examples of Resilience Innovative Facilities to provide a tangible understanding:
Resilience+ Innovation Facility (University of California, Davis)
A mechanism launched under the Feed the Future Innovation Lab, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and implemented in partnership with BFA Global.
Its objective is to strengthen the resilience of smallholder farmers to climate shocks. The core concept, known as Resilience+, combines multiple financial and technological tools—index insurance, commitment savings accounts, contingent credit, and stress-tolerant seeds—to promote both risk protection and future productive investment.
The program is structured in successive phases:
- Phase 1: Establishing local partnerships and designing interventions.
- Phase 2: Field testing and evaluation through randomized controlled trials.
- Phase 3: Disseminating lessons learned.
- Phase 4: Scaling through public or private sector engagement.
The approach relies on flexible financial models that allow farmers to mobilize or secure resources at critical times (past, present, or future) and aims specifically at inclusive and sustainable agricultural transformation.
Resilience Innovation Facility (Terre des Hommes – Tdh)
A very different concept: these are physical facilities designed for children and youth, often in vulnerable or emergency contexts (refugees, high-risk zones, etc.).
Tdh’s RIFs are safe and innovative spaces, equipped with digital technologies and fabrication tools (FabLabs), enabling young people to develop their creativity, digital skills, empowerment, and psychological resilience.
Designed as non-formal educational spaces, they offer workshops, participatory learning, prototyping activities (e.g., 3D printing), and psychosocial support programs—in short: innovation, inclusion, and self-determination.
Concrete examples exist in Hungary (integration of Ukrainian refugees), Romania (centers in Bucharest, Brașov, and Constanța), and Guinea (Conakry) to support young people on the move.
The Resilience Innovation Facility acts as a catalyst for innovation, designed to strengthen the adaptive capacity of vulnerable communities to climatic and economic shocks. By combining rigorous research, strategic partnerships, and innovative financial tools (insurance, credit, savings, resilient seeds), it turns resilience into a driver of sustainable development.
Florent Youzan