Building resilience toolkit overview

AgriCord’s Building Resilience Toolkit is designed to assist Farmers’ Organisations (FOs) in conducting climate risk assessments at both the member and organisational levels. The toolkit offers practical, participatory sessions for climate risk analysis, enabling FOs and their members to develop effective, locally relevant responses to climate challenges.

FOs play a crucial yet often underrecognized role in helping farmers and producers adapt to climate change. The BR-Toolkit aims to strengthen this role by enhancing their capacity for effective adaptation planning that meets the needs of both the FO and its members. Since its launch in 2020, Part I of the toolkit has engaged over 200 trainers in Training of Trainers (ToT) sessions across 14 countries, with more than 2,700 farmers participating in workshops.

Learn more about the outreach of the tool from the BR-I leaflet (2025).

structure of the toolkit

The Toolkit serves to build the internal climate capacity of FOs and their members, enabling them to navigate complex climate challenges while maintaining economically viable and resilient livelihoods. The BR-Toolkit is divided into two parts:

• PART I [FO Members Assessing Climate Risks and Designing Adaptation] focuses on helping FO members identify key climate hazards and risks affecting their farms and livelihoods. It enables participatory climate risk assessments (including an overview of climate change with key definitions and concepts) to plan effective adaptation interventions.

• PART II [Climate Proofing Farmers’ Organisations and Planning for Resilience] evaluates the FO’s internal capacity - its services, assets, and resources- to support members' climate-related needs. The outcome is a tailored Climate Resilience Action Plan that enhances resilience at the FO level and empowers them to advocate for necessary resources and policy changes.

Why the Toolkit is needed

EMPOWERING FOs AND THEIR MEMBERS for climate action

FOs have strong reasons to assess their members’ vulnerabilities to climate change and to screen their activities through a climate lens. Smallholder farmers are often the most adversely affected by climate change, facing increasing threats from extreme weather events and climate variability; this situation is expected to worsen in the near future. Strengthening their resilience and adaptive capacity is essential.

Moreover, FOs are vital in fostering adaptive capacity, providing farmers with access to knowledge, resources, and governance structures necessary for adaptation. Understanding how climate change impacts their members allows FOs to address vulnerabilities and explore new opportunities that may arise.

Additionally, FOs must evaluate their own capabilities to support members in facing climate challenges. This may involve developing new services or modifying existing ones, as well as climate-proofing their infrastructure to withstand extreme weather events. Ultimately, the BR toolkit aims to empower farmers and their organisations to gain recognition for their role in climate action.

Climate change overview

The planet's climate is changing due to greenhouse gas emissions from human activities such as fossil fuel use, transportation, agriculture, deforestation, and waste management. These emissions have led to rising temperatures, more frequent extreme weather events, and unpredictable rainfall patterns. Addressing climate change requires urgent action to reduce emissions while simultaneously adapting to its impacts.

Even if all emissions stopped today, the climate would continue to change for decades due to past emissions. Therefore, it is crucial to support smallholder farmers and FO members in enhancing their resilience and adapting their practices, while also exploring opportunities to reduce greenhouse gases. Understanding local climate impacts and vulnerabilities is key to selecting the best adaptation strategies; FOs can play an important role in the identification and implementation of strategies.

organising a br workshop: step by step users’ guide for facilitaters

Conducting a climate risk analysis using the BR methodology involves careful preparation and data collection. The BR-Toolkit Users’ Guide provides facilitators with step-by-step instructions for conducting a BR workshop. Depending on the analysis's purpose and scope, different data collection methods can be employed, such as structured surveys or participatory workshops.

Before the workshop, it is recommended that the FO conducts a gender analysis and study existing data on vulnerable groups and local climate conditions. This background enhances the vulnerability assessment and fosters a common understanding of relevant contextual factors. Engaging experts may also be necessary to supplement local data for a comprehensive analysis.

To find more answers to Frequently Asked Questions regarding the workshop, please visit our FAQ page.

To learn more about capitalising on experiences from the Building Resilience Toolkit, please visit our BR-capitalisation events page.

AgriCord Building Resilience Toolkit © 2025 by Food and Forest Development Finland - FFD is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Under the terms of this license, this work may be copied, redistributed and adapted for non-commercial purposes, provided that the work is appropriately cited.

*To keep track of the community of practitioners of the BR-Toolkit, we kindly request users to fill in the form below. When filling the access form, you agree that your name will be included in the user register and you agree to share information on the use of the tool with FFD. The tool can be accessed for free, however, we require parties that are using it to inform us when, where and with whom the tool is being used. We also request you to share the end report with FFD. The information will help us to futher develop the tool and to accumulate understanding on farmers' climate priorities.