Resilience and crisis response

Urbanization, population growth, environmental degradation, conflict and climate change are all adding to underdevelopment, poverty and inequality. Natural disasters have left the low-income communities and marginalized more vulnerable. Worldwide displacement is at the highest level ever recorded.

UNDP’s approach is to support micro, small and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs) to become more resilient by partnering and engaging the private sector in disaster risk reduction, crisis preparedness, response, and recovery efforts.

Urbanization, population growth, environmental degradation, conflict and climate change are all contributing to underdevelopment, poverty and inequality.

UNDP helps build the resilience of micro, small and medium sized enterprises against crisis, and engages the private sector in disaster risk reduction, crisis preparedness, response and recovery efforts.

In May 2016, Connecting Business Initiative (CBi) was launched with a collaboration between IICPSD, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and other strategic partners.

Natural disasters have left the poor and marginalized more vulnerable.

Our Work

UNDP IICPSD provides technical support to establish mechanisms for public-private dialogue, supports national governments to develop conducive policies, conducts research and develops knowledge products, coordinates joint action, builds capacity, brokers partnerships between governments and the private sector and facilitates innovative private-sector approaches to tackle development challenges.

We host the Connecting Business Initiative (CBi), a global network for private sector engagement in disaster risk reduction, crisis preparedness, response and recovery. CBi responds to demands from the private sector to be more strategically engaged, to help coordinate more effective responses, build capacity of private sector networks and match needs. Find out more about CBI.

We also support UNDP Country Office engagement with the private sector in different crisis situations. For example, after the earthquake in Haiti, UNDP worked with Digicel to make cash instalments through the first ever mobile money transfer mechanism to support post-disaster housing reconstruction. During the Ebola crisis , private sector technologies helped to set up systems for mobile money payments to 16,000 healthcare workers. IICPSD supported the country offices in West Africa by connecting private sector resources, analyzing the impact on the private sector in the Ebola early recovery assessment, and providing a Framework for Early Recovery Support. In Nepal after the earthquake, UNDP and Microsoft developed software for optimized debris management and livelihoods work.