Tag: resilience

U.S. Food Aid (Part 9): Critiques of Recent Development Food Aid (RFSAs)

July 24, 2026     Since 2019, U.S. Food for Peace spent between $1.8 and $2 billion in development programs called RFSAs, for Resilience Food Security Activities.  RFSAs were more than simple food distribution; they combined food or cash transfers with nutrition educaiton, water supply, hygiene, agriculture, savings groups, market links, mentoring, disaster risk reduction, local governance, gender, and behavior change. The complex designs of these programs made them hard to evaluate, to ascertain whether they reduced hunger or malnutrition.  Most of the measurements from these programs were not about nutrition or hunger, but were about NGO activities or skills training, water committees, microfinance organizations or planning.

Making sense of what RFSAs actually accomplished is clouded by all the complex things NGOs sought to do.  In their own reporting aid agencies are more prone to showcase their field activities over their outcomes or impacts.  For instance, much of what has been written in recent years about the Food for Peace RFSAs is about their design, their theory of change, how many people reached, but not as much about what they accomplished.

The numerous US-funded RFSAs showed many promising near-term outputs, but in the end, showed minimal long-term change in nutrition.  In other words, a repeated lesson from RFSAs was that short-term improvements do not prove durable resilience.  Food aid and complementary activities may improve consumption and nutrition while the project is operating, but lasting impact requires stronger local systems, markets, income streams, water access, and shock-responsive safety nets.

 One RFSA evaluation expert had these reflections about RFSAs:

>   “The  kitchen sink approach (many sectors, scattered activities) to a problem (malnutrition) is difficult to implement and merits more prioritization;”

>   “The USAiD strategy of sequencing and layering makes sense conceptually but it may be hard to implement.  It is hard to assess or evaluate, and should not be an after thought;”

>   “Revisiting the project’s theory of change each year represents a big burden on everyone involved;”

>   “Separating the leaning function from the monitoring and evaluation function, i.e. giving roles to different institutions, is unnecessary and reflects too much micro management.  Meanwhile,tThere were too many monitoring and measuring activities;”

>   “The subsidies given out as supplemental income to buy food will not work if amounts are too low or if other non-food needs are so great that funds are diverted by families to other ends than food.”

>    “Project management offices were too far from the areas of implementation.”

Across the evaluation literature, only a minority of RFSAs produced strong causal evidence that malnutrition rates changed because of the RFSA.  One of the larger programs, in Ethiopia, was evaluated by IFPRI:  despite high baseline stunting and wasting, there was no measurable average impact on child anthropometric status from the Ethiopian SPIR program package.  Meanwhile, in Asia, the multi-year SHOUHARDO RFSA in Bangladesh had a rigorous pre-post evaluation that documented improvements in per capita food expenditures (increasing from $2.03 to 22.22) but found no attributable differences in child malnutrition.

Many of the RFSAs provided cash and food to families and then measured whether the families had more wealth (more cash).  In other words, people given money had more money, at least during the project period, and they said they consumed more food.  But 18 months later, while  families said they were better off,  nutrition gains were not sustained.

Several of the RFSAs never published final project reports or impact results. The most sobering evidence comes from Malawi’s WALA long-term evaluation, where positive endline trends in nutrition and food-aid need were not clearly sustained several years later under climate and pest shocks.   Other evaluations included as Niger’s Hamzari/Girma/Wadata, Zimbabwe’s Amalima/Nuyok/Apolou, Madagascar’s Fararano/Maharo/Fiovana, and Malawi’s UBALE/Njira. These could not isolate RFSA effects from broader trends, shocks, or selection.

Other evaluation lessons of RFSAs include:

The graduation model of sequencing each household’s intervention and mentoring appears to have improved livelihoods and food security.  But the sequencing/layering method did not work in other countries.

Nuggets of success can be identified.  For example, mothers’ “Care Groups” is a model of improving nutrition that is  scalable, and cost-effective. Lead mothers (volunteers) reach 10–15 neighboring households with timed, sequenced messages. Evidence from multiple contexts shows strong improvements in young child feeding practices, hygiene, and service utilization.  Greater success was consistently associated with interpersonal nutrition counseling and home visits, population- and community-based Social and Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) strategies, and targeting children under two or three years (the critical window).

Programs providing preventive supplementary feeding achieved twice the rate of stunting reduction, an average annual decline of 1.69 percentage points, compared to recuperative-only or no-ration programs.  (Less successful programs often relied on stand-alone Positive Deviance/Hearth (PD/H) approaches focused narrowly on recuperation rather than prevention, or failed to integrate services.)

The RFSA model was most effective when it gave poor households a real consumption floor through food, cash, or vouchers and it layered a credible economic pathway: assets, savings, coaching, agricultural or livestock support, market access.

Photo credit:  from CARE’s SHOUHARDO III Plus Program page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/2195296804116047/

U.S. Food Aid (Part 8): Nawiri in Arid Lands of Kenya

July 24, 2026    This is the eighth Hunger Notes article about Food for Peace programs to help inform the public and USDA about lessons learned during past decades about the design and evolution of US food aid, intended to inform USDA which has an outstanding request for information.

Nawiri was the most recent Food for Peace program for Kenya, with about $200 million to different NGOs, led by two groups, Catholic Relief Services and Mercy Corps, covering drought-prone arid lands with mixed pastoral and agricultural economies.  The CRS consortium included Caritas, Tufts University, IBTCI, Concern, Village Enterprise and Kenyatta University and worked in Isiola and Marsabit counties, while Mercy Corps worked in Samburu and Turkana counties, with Research Triangle Institute, AVSI, Viamo, Caritas and the African Population and Health Research Center.  Together these teams  reached some 550,000 people.

Program metrics showed that Nawiri achieved substantial positive impacts but the benefits were often uneven, context-dependent, and constrained by severe environmental shocks.   The implementing agencies found that acute (wasting) malnutrition varies significantly between neighboring wards, across different seasons, and over time, meaning that generalized regional approaches are often ineffective.  Also, screening methods like mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) and weight-for-height z-scores (WHZ) behave differently across seasons, sex, and age groups.  Relying solely on MUAC can delay the identification of malnourished children; employing both metrics is necessary to accurately capture different characteristics and stages of malnutrition.  Not surprisingly, they found that dry climate correlated with worse malnutrition.

NGO evidence generally showed that where their interventions were concentrated, malnutrition measurably fell.   During the period of study, wasting malnutrition declined by over 20% in target areas, though it increased 40% in Turkana. Furthermore, longitudinal studies noted that stunting (long-term malnutrition) increased significantly over time for the sample as a whole, particularly in Laisamis.

Increased systematic screening and referral of malnourished children to health posts were an important reason for those declines seen in wasting.  In the  Turkana, Nawiri equipped 210 community health volunteers in 4 communities with dosage carts, pneumonia beads, and malaria test kits.  Concern piloted an integrated health intervention that added malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea case management with existing integrated-management of acute malnutrition.

Some 57 water systems were rehabilitated, important in a dry lands, and Nawiri fostered 35 local “Water Use Associations” for ongoing improvements for tanks, pipes and water points.  Crops were expanded with irrigation: sorghum, maize, watermelon, green grams, fodder. A 7 km canal was desilted.

“The primary pathway between water insecurity and malnutrition in the arid lands of Kenya is women’s time burden collecting water to meet the minimum drinking and hygiene needs of the household. Water collection is performed exclusively by women and girls and remains one of the pervasively gender inequitable elements of pastoral life. Nawiri aims to address the role of water system functionality through borehole rehabilitation.”

The project found that traditional pastoralist strategic mobility and social institutions (like sharing milk, food, and childcare) are the frontline of disaster response and foundational to community resilience.  Nawiri helped establish retail shops (dukas) in remote areas to stock better varieties of nutritious foods, bringing vibrant markets to communities that previously had to travel up to 7 kilometers for basic goods.  Nawiri promoted livestock health and livestock disease surveillance.

Applying the graduation model, some 500 households in 14 villages graduated with Village Enterprise assistance.  In The Isiolo pilot (600 households) launched 204 businesses and 20 savings groups; Food Consumption Score rose from 51.3% to 83.8% in 3.5 months and children (6–23 mo) meeting minimum acceptable diet rose from 6.38% to 31.65%.

The Double-Edged Sword of Diversification: While livelihood diversification provides alternative income, it can act as a maladaptive coping mechanism if it forces women into labor-intensive, low-return activities,. The program observed that as women spent more time on business activities, time spent on childcare decreased, which in some zones led to reduced breastfeeding and higher acute malnutrition.  While the drought pushed communities to diversify away from livestock, weak local economies meant many new businesses sold the same basic goods (like sugar and flour), fast-tracking local market saturation

Under CRS, 207 teenagers graduated the “Nawiri na Ujuzi” course (tailoring, masonry, plumbing, electrical, mechanics, driving), which was jointly funded by Nawiri and the County Government of Isiolo.  CRS Deputy COP Margaret Kahiga notes all beneficiaries come from households with under-five children facing malnutrition.  In a separate area, a randomized controlled tiral conducted with the Rural Entrepreneur Access Project (REAP) in Samburu revealed a limitation to these economic benefits:  if market saturation crossed a certain tipping point (over 60% enrollment in a specific locality), the income impact for individual businesses could reduce over time as businesses competed against one another

Resilience was highly dependent on informal safety nets, asset ownership, and access to savings.   The program emphasized layered, sequenced interventions (e.g., combining water with agriculture, nutrition education, and markets) and local ownership, leading to better resilience against shocks like drought. The partner county governments agreed to sustaining gains post-closeout, including asset handovers and policy integration. The NGOs also observed a chronic deficiency in prioritizing and budgeting of government resources for nutrition, and political leaders frequently lack awareness of the importance of multisectoral nutrition approaches.

Much of Nawiri intentionally focused on formative research and theory-of-change-analysis during the first two years.  The  Feinstein International Center at Tufts University managed a longitudinal study (bimonthly surveys) in four sentinel sites.  Tufts found that few individual/household variables predict malnutrition, whereas basic structural drivers (pastoralism under pressure, climate variability, weakening customary institutions) dominate.  Mercy Corps’ review of longitudinal data found that wasting malnutrition had persistently been above 15% for three decades, without improvement.

Notably, DOGE terminated the CRS program, despite positive progress and investments, because DOGE’s simplistic word search through the fun. ding agreement found politically-offensive words, like “gender”, and “climate.”  Because Nawiri was terminated early, a full, independent endline evaluation of final impact may be incomplete.

 

 

U.S. Food Aid (Part 7): Lessons of Exit & Sustainability

July 21, 2026   This is the seventh part of a Hunger Notes series that review of lessons of U.S. food aid.

The ultimate goal of aid agencies’ food aid projects is to solve hunger problems in a lasting way.  Rarely, however, are aid agencies able to come back and see what improvements persisted after the project was over.

Unique and powerful research conducted by Beatrice Lorge Rogers and Jennifer Coates of Tufts University’s School of Nutrition (commissioned by the USG Food for Peace program) looked in-depth at what happens after food assistance projects ended. Their key conclusion was that project success at the moment of exit does not reliably predict long term sustainability.  (see:  synthesis report.)

The study found that many interventions that looked strong around the end of implementation weakened or collapsed once external aid resources and incentives disappeared.  As a result, the researchers argued that sustainability must be designed from the beginning of a project, not added late in the final year. They emphasized that sustained outcomes require three jointly necessary factors. These are:  1) a continuing source of resources, 2) technical and managerial capacity, and 3) motivation that does not depend on project inputs. A fourth factor, linkages to institutions, is often essential for phase over. The study stated that “endline achievement is not evidence of durability” and that “hope is not a strategy.”  In a series of reports produced by Tufts University, they demonstrated that sustainability is a trajectory that unfolds over years, not a status measured at a single point in time.

The research followed twelve NGO projects funded by the US Food for Peace program in four countries: Bolivia, Honduras, India, and Kenya. These projects had been deemed to have been generally successful at the time of their completion, and had documented sustainability plans.  Included in the study were ADRA, CARE, Save the Children, World Vision, Food for the Hungry, ACDI/VoCA, Counterpart International, and local sub-awardees.  The Tufts study used mixed methods and collected data at exit and again one to three years later. It examined whether services continued, whether practices were maintained, and whether outcomes persisted or changed. The findings challenged common assumptions in development programming.

One assumption they found NGOs too often make is that once people have been trained, they will continue the activity. But the study found that training alone was not enough. People also needed motivation, resources, linkages, and opportunities to refresh knowledge. Another assumption is that establishing contact between community actors and government services will create a durable relationship. The study found that linkages were sustainable only when responsibilities were explicit, the receiving institution valued the activity, and the institution had staff, authority, budget, and supplies.

The research also showed that abrupt exits often led to collapse, while gradual exits that allowed independent operation before departure were more promising.

Across countries, sustainability requires deliberate integration of resources, capacity, motivation, and linkages. These factors need to be built into program design from the start. The study found that the first three factors were jointly necessary. No project achieved lasting sustainability without all three functioning together. Resources refer to a continuing source of financial, material, or human capital. Capacity refers to technical and managerial skills. Motivation refers to incentives that do not rely on project inputs. Linkages refer to vertical connections to institutions that can provide supervision, supplies, or market access. The study found that projects often achieved high impact at exit because they were supplying resources and incentives; but, once those supports disappeared, outcomes could remain stable, improve, erode, or change in unexpected ways. The researchers warned that focusing exclusively on maximizing impact at exit, as is common, can undermine sustainability.

“Even evidence of continued impact at one point in time post-exit may not predict long-term sustainability.”

Case examples illustrate these findings.  In Bolivia, NGOs built piped water systems and established community water committees. Households paid monthly user fees. The systems were highly sustainable because they combined resources, capacity, and motivation. The user fees provided resources. The committees had strong managerial capacity. Households valued the benefit of piped water and were motivated to pay. In contrast, water quality testing and chlorination collapsed. NGOs had managed and paid for water testing until the final day. Committees had never practiced independent operation. Beneficiaries disliked the taste of chlorine and did not perceive the need for treatment. Motivation was absent.

“Impact and sustainability are distinct achievements, and an exclusive focus on impact at exit may jeopardize sustainability. For example, providing free resources up to the time of project exit may maximize project impact, but the withdrawal of those resources poses a bigger threat to sustainability than a gradual withdrawal with the development of substitute resources.”

In agriculture, NGOs relied on model farmers to teach improved techniques. They provided free inputs to incentivize the model farmers. When the free inputs ended, almost all model farmers stopped training others. In maternal and child health, NGOs provided free food rations to mothers as incentives to attend community growth monitoring sessions. When the free food stopped, mothers abandoned the sessions. Many volunteer community health workers lost motivation and felt their roles had diminished. Mothers shifted participation to government clinics where cash transfers and supplements were available.  See:  Bolivia synthesis.

In Honduras, abrupt withdrawal of free food rations caused a sharp decline in mothers’ participation in health monitoring. Community health workers became demotivated. Interventions that established fee for service models and gradual transitions were more sustainable. Community managed piped water systems achieved high sustainability because they secured resources through user fees, built capacity, and maintained motivation. Linking farmers directly to commercial buyers was effective. Farmers continued agricultural practices and incomes because the linkage provided market access and motivation. Phase over to government programs struggled due to national resource constraints and a political crisis. Government health systems lacked resources to supervise volunteer health workers. Without supervision and supplies, the workers’ functionality declined.

In India, the government context shaped sustainability. The Indian Supreme Court ruled that food is a basic human right, and the government banned import of genetically modified corn soy blends. Food for Peace projects devoted their final phases to transitioning food aid responsibilities to government programs. CARE transitioned the food supply chain to the Integrated Child Development Service.  Many Anganwadi Centers maintained uninterrupted food supply for preschool children after exit. Take home rations were less reliable. In Orissa, distribution dropped dramatically due to irregular deliveries. In some states, beneficiaries reported that the quality of government rations had degraded so much that some fed it to animals. Mothers continued attending health days only to receive the rations. Catholic Relief Services attempted to transition school feeding programs to the Mid Day Meals program. This largely failed because the government lacked motivation to provide free food to private religious and boarding schools.

“The study findings demonstrate that it is critical to verify the validity of a project’s underlying theory of change at the project design stage and to reassess its validity throughout project implementation.”

The most sobering lesson from India was that the projects failed to reduce child malnutrition. The assumption that combining food supplementation with health education would reduce undernutrition was not supported by evidence.   See:  Synthesis of India study.

In Kenya, gradual exit was effective. CARE’s Community Savings Mobilization project organized savings groups and provided training. CARE provided no external seed capital. All loan funds came from members’ savings. CARE graduated the groups to independent operation after one year. For the remainder of the project, CARE served only as an on call technical resource. Three years after exit, the groups were thriving and multiplying. They had high motivation and solid organizational capacity. In agriculture, CARE required basmati rice farmers to assume the cost of premium seeds before exit. This resulted in independent producer associations. In contrast, abrupt exits led to collapse. NGOs managed water quality testing until the final day. Committees had never practiced budgeting or hiring services. Beneficiaries disliked chlorine. The practice was abandoned. In maternal and child health, NGOs distributed free food rations as incentives. When the free food ended, participation collapsed. Volunteer health workers lost motivation. In livestock health, community-based animal health workers charged fees from the beginning. Livestock owners valued the benefit and paid. The fees provided resources and motivation. This intervention was highly sustainable.

Across all four countries, the study found that free handouts pose severe risks to sustainability when no alternative local source is established. Free food rations, free agricultural inputs, and free services created expectations that could not be maintained. When the free resources ended, participation and service delivery collapsed. The study found that fee for service models were more sustainable when culturally appropriate and introduced early.

Charging fees established expectations and built market viability. Attempting to impose fees at the end of a previously free project almost always failed. The study also found that linkages to institutions were often necessary but not always viable. Linkages succeeded when the partner had resources, motivation, and capacity. Linkages failed when the partner lacked budget, staff, or political will. The study stated that “government will take over is not a strategy unless the government unit has both commitment and operational capacity.”

The research also emphasized the importance of designing for context and resilience. Projects operate within environments shaped by political, economic, and environmental shocks. In Kenya, droughts devastated yields and livestock herds shortly after exit. Farmers continued applying improved techniques, but the shock wiped out yields. They lacked resources to purchase inputs for the next season. In Honduras, a constitutional crisis reduced government resources and undermined planned phase over of health services. Sustainability plans must account for predictable shocks. Projects should integrate crop insurance, promote diversified income streams, and establish drought resistant infrastructure.

RECOMMENDATIONS

  • •  Post-project sustainability needs to be designed from the start of the project. NGOs should consider embedding lasting resources, build capacity, align with intrinsic motivation, and secure viable linkages.
  • •  Donors should extend timelines when there is evidence of progress. True capacity building and phase over often require more than five years.
  • •  Donors should fund post project evaluations five to ten years after exit. Sustainability is a trajectory, not a one time status.
  • •  Projects should avoid free handouts unless a local source of resources will exist after exit. Fee for service models and business approaches are more sustainable when introduced early.
  • •  Projects should cultivate multiple layers of government ownership. Continuity should not depend on a single political stakeholder. Commitments should be incorporated into municipal plans, budgets, administrative decisions, departmental responsibilities, and civil service job descriptions.
  • •  Projects should ensure that linkages are viable. Responsibilities must be explicit. The receiving institution needs to value the activity and have staff, authority, budget, and supplies. Mechanisms for communication, supervision, and accountability must remain active.
  • •  Projects should plan gradual exits. Communities and local organizations need time to operate independently while the NGO is still present. Abrupt exits often lead to collapse.
  • •   Projects should design for resilience. They should anticipate shocks and build systems that can withstand them.

The studies’ headline conclusion is that achieving high impact at exit does not guarantee long term sustainability.  The researchers found that “even evidence of continued impact at one point in time post exit may not predict long term sustainability.” They argued that sustainability requires resources, capacity, motivation, and linkages. These factors must be deliberately integrated into program design. The study influenced USAID’s Food Assistance and Food Security Strategy. Development awards came to require explicit sustainability plans and exit strategies. The four factor vocabulary entered mainstream guidance. The research provided a blueprint for designing programs that outlive their funding cycles. It showed that lasting development success depends not on short term statistical triumphs but on long term resilience and independent operation.

These studies had a profound influence on USG planning.  FFP’s decade strategy (released October 2016) explicitly reframed the agency’s development goal around sustaining gains; it “broadens the previous goal of reducing food insecurity to one that envisions improving food security and sustaining it,” and commits FFP and partners to “strive for greater impact with greater efficiency and sustainability.” Tufts and its collaborators state the connection directly. In a Tufts Now feature (Jan 2017):  “Food for Peace has already incorporated many of the recommendations from the Tufts study in its guidance to aid organizations.” Implementing partners echoed this; ACDI/VOCA (2021) described FFP as having “incorporated many of the recommendations that arose from Tufts University research into its 2016–2025 strategy, now requiring detailed sustainability plans for all DFSAs.”

Refer to:

https://www.fantaproject.org/research/exit-strategies-ffp

https://www.fantaproject.org/sites/default/files/resources/India-Exit-Strategies-Report-Jan2017.pdf

The past FANTA project (formerly, USAID) also continues to provide summaries and links.

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On Resilience: What is Resilience in Anti-Hunger Aid?

July 1, 2026     This ongoing column in Hunger Notes was created to explore the fascination aid agencies have with the term “resilience,” which to some degree has replaced other broad, aspirational buzzwords like “development”, “sustainability,” and “empowerment.”  Like those other terms, resilience has become a goal of many aid programs, both development and humanitarian.  Yet, there has never been concensus about how to measure if and when resilience is achieved.  This is because resilience means as many different things as there are programs addressing it.

Food, nutrition and other anti-hunger aid programs have been under the banner of resilience for most of the last decade.  Today, the US Department of Agriculture is seeking inputs about its Food for Peace programming including lessons about the large “Resilience Food Security Activities”, or RFSAs whereby diverse NGOs aimed to foster resilience with food aid.  So, sharpening and clarifying the relationship between resilience and hunger is timely.

Key donors, including the European Union and US Government, as well as the Red Cross, tend to view resilience as “capacity under stress.”  The International Food Policy Research Institute and key advisors to the former USAID posited resilience as the ability of households, communities or systems to “withstand, adapt to, and recover from shocks.”

In practice, for any given program, what does this mean?  The EU representative in Juba, South Sudan, was very clear in defining resilience as the rate of acute malnutrition among children.  Other programs measure resilience as essentially being the same thing as sustainability (do the program’s outcomes or systems persist after the end of funding?).

When USAID had an office of resilience, it promoted resilience primarily in terms of household livelihoods, community cohesion and food security throughout cycles of drought and floods, measuring:

  • ♦  Resilience capacities (absorptive, adaptive, transformative)
  • ♦  Well‑being outcomes (food security, nutrition, income stability)
  • ♦  Shock severity and frequency
  • ♦  Longitudinal household surveys to observe recovery patterns.

The Rockefeller Foundation has defined resilience as the capacity of cities, communities, and systems to survive, adapt, and grow despite chronic stresses and acute shocks, and in this includes good, inclusive governance, leadership, and urban planning.

The Red Cross has been piloting resilience measures for many years, focusing on “risk” assessment.  It has developed a dashboard which measures resilience across 11 dimensions: disaster/risk management, health, water and sanitation, shelter, food and nutrition security, social cohesion, inclusion, economic opportunities, infrastructure and services, natural resource management, and connectedness. It allows resilience comparisons by community and by demographic categories such as gender and education.

These approaches to resilience are oriented largely toward relief-to-development programming, assuming recurring disasters at the population level.

“Resilience” is widely used but used differently for measuring ecological and environmental change as well as human psychology.  Meanwhile, engineers and architects measure resilience in precise ways such as structural integrity.

A decade ago, a large roundtable, or symposium, of 100 experts from government agencies, NGOs, and academia was held to share progress in measuring resilience.  The summary can be found here.  Among its conclusions:  “There are no single metrics. There is a need for evaluations to tell us what resilience is and what works. So far — “Resilience has been episodic and serendipitous through extraordinary people in missions.” (The symposium was hosted by American University, World Vision, Mercy Corps, Catholic Relief Services, the American Red Cross, IBTCI, the Wilson Center, and Management Systems International.)

USAID’s last resilience policy update, building on a legacy focused on disaster risk reduction, was updated in 2024, here  It covers a wide range of sectors and topics:  “USAID long ago recognized that resilience is not simply a food security issue; it is essential for managing risks across a range of goals across the areas of climate, health, peace, education, democracy and governance, poverty alleviation, and economic growth. While earlier resilience efforts focused on community-level programming, this policy emphasizes that we are also now investing more in host-country and local systems, with an eye toward development, diplomacy and policy solutions such as expanding social protection systems, enabling displaced persons to access jobs, and reforming national policies to better serve marginalized groups. So, what resilience means in practice will continue to evolve and will be revisited in this column.”

As the USG reboots its foreign aid, it will be challenged to define resilience more cleanly and usefully, or it will fall out of use.