National governments can pre-finance support with disaster risk insurance, but there has been no objective way to determine whether it is more effective than paying the costs as they arise. New research has found a way to evaluate risk insurance and to build a metric for improving contract design.

Small-scale farmers often don't adopt technologies that build resilience, like stress-tolerant seeds and index insurance, because they don't provide benefits in every year. New research shows how to maximize learning with these technologies to quickly build lasting adoption and long-term resilience in rural communities.

Resilience+ (also Resilience-Plus) describes when rural families are more immediately able to withstand a shock and when that knowledge increases their investment in agricultural productivity. Generating Resilience+ could accelerate efforts to reduce poverty and spur agricultural growth.