About-0001.jpg

Conference Theme

The 2019 SEEP Annual Conference theme – Building Resilience through Market Systems – will highlight proven and experimental strategies that harness the potential of the market to support people, enterprises and communities that are highly vulnerable to the shock-stress-shock cycle. Shocks and stresses are increasing in frequency and intensity around the globe. Climate and weather variability, population dynamics, local and global price shocks, illness and disease, political instability, and conflict are intersecting in complex ways that threaten the lives and livelihoods of people and erode hard-fought development gains. Consequently, SEEP members are becoming increasingly focused on strategies that identify opportunities to mitigate risks and decrease vulnerabilities for priority populations including women, smallholder farmers, refugees, internally displaced persons and other marginalized groups. Market systems approaches are an important means to this end.

The 2019 SEEP Annual Conference will highlight insights and evidence for more effective responses to the most challenging questions we are tackling now and in the future:  

• How can access to markets contribute to greater resilience for vulnerable households?
• How are financial services, formal and informal, contributing to increased resiliency?
• What is the role of social capital and social networks in nurturing resilience and supporting livelihoods?
• How can we more effectively engage the private sector?
• What are the specific challenges to advancing resilience in thin markets and fragile contexts?
• Can women’s empowerment and gender equality serve as a source of resilience? 
• How can we better harness data to strengthen market resilience overall?  

Technical Tracks

The conference theme is articulated around four technical tracks:

• Fostering Resilience through Financial Inclusion
  
• Leveraging Markets for Resilience in Fragile Environments
• Gender Equality as a Resilience Strategy
• Data and Resilience