The Market Systems Resilience Index: A Multi-Dimensional Tool for Development Practitioners to Assess Resilience at Multiple Levels

Abstract

In this paper, the authors present an innovative approach to measuring the resilience of a market system—the Market Systems Resilience Index (MSRI). The MSRI has been developed both to guide development practitioners in the process of conducting resilience assessments and to promote the inclusion of all relevant actors within a market system. A narrative review of the evolution of resilience measurement is presented including identifying the gaps and challenges that remain. Some of these include balancing comparability and contextualization of the questions, understanding how often to perform the survey, and determining how many market actors are needed to properly assess the resilience of the market. This is followed by outlining the development of the MSRI and how it fills some of the existing gaps including the addition of households into the market analysis while creating a set of questions that are consistent while allowing for some optional questions to add nuance. Examples from Nepal and Bangladesh are used to highlight the types of findings that come from using the MSRI. Finally, we describe how these results may be used to inform and guide program management and design of projects.