Policymakers are confronted with the challenge of delivering immediate responses to current risks and adaptation deficits while ensuring that short-term interventions are consistent with longer-term strategies for building resilience and sustainable development (see discussion in chap. While some problems require long-term horizons for analysis and planning, others must be addressed within the framework of the present. In the absence of a flexible and comprehensive plan which lays out the strategic objectives and their internal consistency with more immediate interventions, there is a tendency to focus on the middle ground, or on intermediate solutions, which, as time elapses, prove to be either insufficient for addressing extreme shocks or inefficient, should the shock not materialize. At the same time, policy action must aim for transformative solutions, which address the underlying structural inequalities that perpetuate the vulnerabilities of certain groups.