"The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential for agricultural-based communities in the Dry Zone of Myanmar to be harmed by shifting environmental conditions, a disabling governance and policy environment, and inefficient agricultural-based markets. Though specific topics such as water resources, indebtedness, and agricultural policy are well studied in the Dry Zone, few systematic efforts have been employed to evaluate and prioritize the cumulative impacts resulting from interacting and multi-sector shocks and stresses facing communities. This report presents an overview of a Strategic Resilience Assessment (STRESS) conducted by Mercy Corps in partnership with Enlightened Myanmar Research (EMR). The use of credit is vital for Dry Zone farming communities, but debt accumulation and restrictive repayment terms reduce the ability of households to positively cope and adapt to easily perturbed social, economic, and environmental conditions. Other types of shocks and stresses such as poor access to quality inputs, unsupportive policies, erratic rainfall, and land degradation are in a dynamic state of interaction with both the debt cycle and each other. They are feeding off one another, and their cumulative impact is greater than from an individual stress. To build resilience and positively manage challenges, development strategies should be tailored to increase the absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities of communities. Together, these represent the short-, medium-, and long-term capabilities that are essential for community resilience. They are also the foundation of support recommendations presented here through a Theory of Change (ToC). Potential resilience-building development strategies have been placed into three groupings that support and reinforce one another: (1) better and more flexible financial options can increase the potential profitability of existing livelihood strategies and the ability to invest in new ones; (2) improved crop production strategies can intensify production more sustainably by getting more from less, better absorbing the impacts of variable conditions, and increasing the market power of farmers and laborers; and (3) diversifying income streams aims to help households better manage risk by spreading investments across more than one type of livelihood strategy..."