Poor people are the most vulnerable. Their lives are highly susceptible to shocks or disruptions caused by climate change, natural disasters, conflict and the spread of infectious disease.

The overall programme goal is to strengthen the ability of poor people to use technology to cope with threats from natural disasters, environmental degradation and civil conflicts, thus aiming to address the following specific objectives:

• Strengthening ways for the people living in fragile situation to cope with the environmental degradation and natural disasters, which threatens their livelihoods and improving vulnerable communities' ability to prepare for, survive and rebuild their livelihoods after natural disaster.
• Preventing and managing conflicts over scare natural resources and competition for common property resources.
• The programme will also partially address the issues of scaling up, integrating experience in new generation projects on production, processing, and marketing, to mitigate the risk of livelihoods.

Priority targets issues are greater understanding around vulnerability, risk mitigation, climate change and hazards to provide direction of work in six major key areas:

• Disaster mitigation, coping with drought, flood and river erosion
• Strengthening food security
• Strengthen social protection
• Strengthening natural resource management and conservation
• Working with conflict within communities around natural resource management
• Strengthening marginal voices