Anti-Fragile Market Systems: Resilience 2.0
Anti-fragility is the next frontier in Resilience programming. Resilient systems flex under stress and return to their former state, while anti-fragile systems improve when stressed due to their capacities to adapt and grow stronger.
Anti-fragility is a concept that has become increasingly influential in many disciplines since it was first introduced by systems theorist Nassim Taleb in his Incerto series of books that includes The Black Swan, Anti-Fragile, and Skin the Game. Taleb argues that the world is entering a period of rapid change and increasing uncertainty, making accurate predictions about the future unreliable. Rather than counting on specific approaches or technologies to survive shocks, the best approach is to build systems with specific characteristics that allow them to rapidly anticipate and adapt to stressors and shocks and become stronger as a result.
During this two-day training, we will explore five key domains of anti-fragility that allow systems to thrive and become stronger as they experience shocks and stressors:
Optionality – Systems with limited ways of working are, by nature, fragile while anti-fragile systems integrate multiple channels and access points for capital, technologies, partnerships, and dependable data. We explore what makes an option an option.
Innovation – Anti-fragile systems hinge on the continued emergence, adoption, and scaling of novel innovations. This includes acquiring beneficial attitudes that promote innovation as well as the acquiring tools and skills that enable controlled risk taking.
Variation – Anti-fragile systems rely on diversity to provide alternative perspectives and approaches. Anti-fragile systems include a variety of stakeholders, including women, youth, and others and benefit from a diverse resource base and new ways of thinking.
Learning – Systems actors need reliable, timely, verifiable data to make good decisions. Data platforms should be actionable and designed to cut through noise and help systems actors understand emerging opportunities and threats. Feedback loops provide another way of constantly monitoring and adapting to changing conditions.
Trust – Well-conceptualized contracting, well aligned risk-reward dynamics, and a commitment to “win-win” equity, transparency, and accountability are all central to establishing an atmosphere of trust between systems actors. This trust provides a system with possibilities that do not exist otherwise. Connexus’ trainers will show how these domains dovetail with those concepts promoted in USAID’s market resilience framework and mirror the latest research into the best practices of what creates dynamic and resilient systems. This training will also show how anti-fragility concepts can be used to create effective tools for project assessments, strategic planning, and day to day management in development.
Trainers
Todd Crosby is Vice President of Programs for Connexus. Todd has led the development of the anti-fragile systems approach, which is being used by the Feed the Future Senegal Nafoore Warsaaji (Gardens of Abundance) Activity. Todd holds an M.A. in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and has over 27 years of experience working in community development in West Africa, including Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, and Ghana. His technical expertise focuses on the use of private sector approaches such as value chains, last mile agents, social marketing, and social franchising for community-based rural development. He is fluent in English and French.
Aiden Hall is a Project Manager at Connexus Corporation with experience managing MCC and USAID-funded projects. Aiden serves a Project Manager on the Feed the Future Senegal Nafoore Warsaaji (Gardens of Abundance) Activity, where Connexus is applying its Anti-fragile Market Systems Framework to transform value chains into anti-fragile, commercial horticulture hubs. He holds a B.A. in Government & Politics and French from the University of Maryland and has experience working in North and West Africa. He is fluent in English and French.
