The publication has three crucial aims: first, to provide a comprehensive review of the literature showing the significance of resilience for health and well-being outcomes; second, to ensure that strengthening resilience and developing supportive environments are an integral part of current and future processes to align national and subnational health plans with the Health 2020 policy framework; and third, to emphasize that such processes should impact on resilience-building and fully exploit the many beneficial synergies between Health 2020 and the SDG agenda