Synthesizing five years of learning through the USAID Promoting Agriculture, Health and Alternative Livelihoods (PAHAL) program in Nepal, Resilience Program Start-Up: How Five Years of Rich Learning through PAHAL Can Help Future Programs Start Strong, provides a high-level overview of how to apply a resilience lens to key standard practices. This paper outlines five key moments during program start-up where applying a resilience lens to existing good program management standard practices is critical: contextual analysis, results chains (resilience pathways), annual work planning and intervention design, quarterly work planning and activity design, and monitoring, evaluation and learning planning. We refer to these as resilience standard practices.

This document not only draws on PAHAL but also on several other large, multisector programs with the aim of providing practical guidance for development and humanitarian practitioners that can be used during start-up and/or throughout the program cycle to inform adaptive management. Each of the five chapters focuses on one of these resilience standard practices by answering a set of key questions:

• How will this enhance the good work we’re already doing? Outlining the rationale for why it is critical to apply a resilience lens to an existing standard practice.
• Who should be involved and when? Highlighting which team members at which level might play a role in pursuing the resilience standard practice so leaders can plan accordingly.
• How do we complete the resilience standard practice? Practical overviews of the steps teams have taken in applying a resilience lens to the given standard practice.
• What has this looked like for other teams? Honest reflections about how and why the resilience standard practices, based on the PAHAL team’s experience, are recommended.