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Discussion No. 137  01.03.2017 – 24.03.2017
www.fao.org/fsnforum/activities/discussions/resilience
Beyond “temporal” resilience: results that
can withstand the test of time
Collection of contributions received
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Table of Contents
Topic note .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Contributions received ................................................................................................................................................................ 4
1. Emile Houngbo, National University of Agriculture, Porto-Novo (UNA), Benin.................................... 4
2. Thomas Amougou Obama, Croix Rouge Camerounaise, Cameroon ........................................................... 5
3. Stephen Omondi Okoth, Elison Decision Support Services and Institute of Logistics and Supply
Chain Management, Kenya .................................................................................................................................................... 5
4. Richard Ofwono, Action Africa Help International, South Sudan ................................................................ 5
5. Walter Mwasaa, facilitator of the discussion, CARE, Bangladesh ................................................................ 6
6. Jan Eijkenaar, Independent, Sudan........................................................................................................................... 6
7. Mandar Vaidya, Grassroots Initiative, India ......................................................................................................... 7
8. Lal Manavado, University of Oslo affiliate, Norway ........................................................................................... 8
9. Robert Mutisi, Manica Boards and Doors, Zimbabwe ...................................................................................... 9
10.
Mike Jones, Swedish Biodiversity Centre, Sweden ....................................................................................... 9
11.
Temesgen Kebede, Higher Education Institution, Ethiopia ................................................................... 10
12.
Ricardo Zebeda Gaitán, Colectivo Social por el Derecho a la Alimentación de Guatemala,
Guatemala .................................................................................................................................................................................. 10
13.
Murasi Mulupi Murasi, Agricultural Development Corporation, Kenya ........................................... 11
14.
Max Blanck, FAO, Italy............................................................................................................................................ 12
15.
Andrea Sánchez Enciso, FAO, Italy.................................................................................................................... 12
16.
Rebecca Pietrelli, FAO, ESA Division, Italy..................................................................................................... 13
17.
Walter Mwasaa, facilitator of the discussion, CARE, Bangladesh ........................................................ 14
18.
Robert Mutisi, Manica Boards and Doors, Zimbabwe (second contribution) ................................ 14
19.
Lal Manavado, University of Oslo affiliate, Norway (second contribution) ..................................... 14
20.
Arshad Malik, PMAS-Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi, Pakistan .......................................... 15
21.
Amy Giliam, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa............................................................................... 16
22.
Dele Raheem, Arctic Centre / University of Lapland, Finland ............................................................... 16
23.
Marco d’Errico, FAO, Italy..................................................................................................................................... 17
24.
Joy Muller, IFRC, Switzerland.............................................................................................................................. 17
25.
Stefan Pasti, The Community Peacebuilding and Cultural Sustainability (CPCS) Initiative,
United STates of America .................................................................................................................................................... 18
26.
Lemma Belay Ababu, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Ethiopia ....................... 19
27.
Mike Jones, Swedish Biodiversity Centre, Sweden (second contribution) ...................................... 20
28.
Mike Jones, Swedish Biodiversity Centre, Sweden (third contribution) .......................................... 21
29.
Walter Mwasaa, facilitator of the discussion, CARE, Bangladesh ........................................................ 21
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Topic note
Scholars and development workers may have different opinions on what resilience in the context of
human development is. However, all their definitions and actions revolve around understanding
shocks and stressors and their effects on individuals and communities, and around building people’s
capacity to adapt and transform their livelihoods in order to withstand damage and recover from it.
In implementing resilience-building interventions, the rigor in identifying, understanding, analysing and
addressing the multifaceted determinants of resilience is often the driver of success. The complexity of
resilience building is underscored by the simple fact that diverse and often repetitive shocks and
stressors, no matter how small, can have significant impacts on persons, communities or systems
reeling from the effects of another shock/stressor, regardless of their magnitude. This presents a
challenge for projects aimed at resilience building and for determining the time frame in which the
impact of such programmes are evaluated. An individual deemed “resilient” today could in a short
period lose all the capacities he/she has to deal with predictable shocks.
I believe that researchers and development workers need to identify and model successes in
building resilience by taking into account not only the coherence and results of the interventions, but
also the time frame in which the results could be sustained by the people concerned. My assumption is
that short-term interventions and results build "temporal" resilience that only holds within the limits of
a given time frame and context, and for only a finite number of predefined vulnerabilities. The
compounding reality is that programmes often focus on large-scale shocks and stressors, but not so
much on microlevel ones that could affect individuals and communities in no particular pattern or
sequence.
With this in mind, I would like to invite members to share and discuss experiences or studies that
address the question of whether or not a minimum time frame exists in which an individual,
community or system should remain resilient to actually qualify as "resilient". I would avoid
considering short-term outcomes as successes in building resilience.
The literature I found on temporality or the time-bound nature of resilience is (surprisingly!) not very
recent. A number of publications can be found at this link: https://cybergeo.revues.org/25554.
Looking forward to a fruitful discussion.
Walter Mwasaa
Dear FSN Forum members and colleagues,
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Contributions received
1. Emile Houngbo, National University of Agriculture, Porto-Novo (UNA), Benin
Original contribution in French
La résilence aux chocs socioéconomiques est une question temporelle, influencée par des facteurs
propres à la personne/communauté exposée. La période de cinq (5) ans est souvent reconnue comme
acceptable pour déduire de la résilience ou non à des chocs, et plus loin de la pauvreté chronique d'un
individu ou d'une communauté.
La résilience vis-à-vis des chocs socioéconomiques est effectivement une question temporelle. Cette
dimension est particulièrement prise en compte dans l’analyse de la dynamique de pauvreté. Les chocs
en question peuvent être idiosyncrasiques, affectant certains ménages pris isolement (maladie, décès,
…), que communs (ou covariants), affectant un ensemble ou groupe de ménages (sécheresse,
inondation, …). La résilience au choc dépend au moins de trois facteurs : le degré d’exposition de la
personne/communauté concernée, les ressources disponibles et mobilisables par la
personne/communauté concernée et le degré de vulnérabilité de celle-ci. Il s’agit d’une question que
j’ai longuement débattue dans ma thèse de doctorat sur la dynamique de pauvreté et la croissance
agricole. La littérature indique qu’une période de cinq (5) ans est raisonnable pour déduire si un
individu ou une communauté est résilient ou pas. En effet,
i) la période de cinq ans est perçue comme une longue période de temps dans la vie de l’individu dans
plusieurs cultures ;
ii) c’est la période de cinq ans qui séparent communément les exercices de collecte de données de
panel pour les analyses temporelles ;
iii) les résultats empiriques disponibles indiquent que les personnes qui ont été pauvres (donc non
résilient) pendant cinq ans ou plus ont une forte probabilité de demeurer pauvres pour le reste de leur
vie.
English translation
The resilience to socio-economic shocks is a temporal issue, influenced by factors related to the
person/community exposed. The period of five years is often recognized as acceptable to judge
resilience (or not) to shocks, and by extension the chronic poverty of an individual or a community.
The resilience against socio-economic shocks is effectively a temporal issue. This dimension is
particularly taken into account in the analysis of the dynamics of poverty. The shocks in question can
be idiosyncratic, affecting certain households taken in isolation (disease, deaths ...), or general (or
broad in effect), which affect a set or group of households (drought, floods ...). The resilience to shock
depends on at least three factors: the degree of exposure of the person/community concerned, the
availability and mobilization of resources by the concerned person or community and their degree of
vulnerability. It is a question that I have debated at length in my doctoral thesis on the dynamic of
poverty and agricultural growth. The literature indicates that a period of five (5) years is reasonable to
conclude if a person or a community is resilient or not. Indeed,
i) five years is perceived as a long period of time in the life of an individual in many cultures;
ii) five year periods typically break down the data collecting exercises for temporal analyses;
iii) the available empirical results indicate that people who remain poor (therefore not resilient)
during five years or more will most probably stay poor for the rest of their lives.
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2. Thomas Amougou Obama, Croix Rouge Camerounaise, Cameroon
Original contribution in French
Bonjour à tous les internautes,
Je tiens à féliciter walter mwasaa pour la thématique autour de la résilience. Comme il a si bien
développé dans son introduction la construction de la résilience est complexe ce ci on l’ajoute du fait
de la complexité de la conception du terme résilience. En effet la résilience repose sur trois
facteurs prévenir, faire face et surmonter une situation de crise. Maintenant il est question de savoir si
les trois facteurs sont liés ? De manière à ce que chaque intervention qui sous-entendu apporte des
réponses à une situation de crise de façon à relever la résilience intègre obligatoirement les trois
facteurs ? En ce qui concerne le thème c’est un point qui est porté à réflexion dans la mesure où il est
question de savoir qu’elle est la durée minimale d’intervention sur un individu ou une communauté
pour renforcer une capacité de résilience ? Un individu ou une communauté devient-il résilient
lorsqu’il sort d’une situation d’urgence ? La résilience est-elle générale ? Si un individu ou une
communauté reste vulnérable sur un plan social ou économique peut-on continuer à le percevoir
comme résilient ?
English translation
Hello to all contributors!
I would like to congratulate Walter Mwasaa for the topic related to resilience. As he has developed so
well in the introduction, resilience building is complicated, if the fact of the complexity of the
conception of the term resilience is included. Indeed, resilience stands on three factors: preventing,
confronting and overcoming a crisis situation. Right now, it is a question of knowing if the three factors
are related. In such a way that does each intervention that implies responses to a crisis situation so as
to increase resilience necessarily integrate the three factors? Where the topic is concerned, it is a point
that is thought-provoking to the extent that it is a question of knowing what is the minimum duration
of an intervention on a person or community in order to reinforce the capacity for resilience? Does a
person or community become resilient when they emerge from an urgent situation? Is resilience
general? If a person or community stay vulnerable on a social or economic level can one continue to
see them as resilient?
3. Stephen Omondi Okoth, Elison Decision Support Services and Institute of Logistics
and Supply Chain Management, Kenya
Temporal resilience to threats and crises is necessary to particular crises and threats. However, it
should be scaled from being temporal to a sufficient scale of sustainable resilent. I would agree that
overcoming of threats temporarily is just like winning a day's battle in a long drawn war hence do not
qualify as resilience. Resilience should cover the entire lifespan of an individual, a generation and
societies at large. It involves harnessing and optimizing all our human faculties and capabilities,
related social capital and natural capital. It must include ability to predict possible future
shortcomings, prescribing solutions and implementing them in time.
4. Richard Ofwono, Action Africa Help International, South Sudan
The kind of context in which resilience is being built is very critical in determining how much time is
required to build resilience to a particular shock faced by a community or household/individual. In
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contexts where state institutions are as good as inexistent and available resources are directed more
towards lifesaving interventions, it’s important to embrace an incremental approach to building
resilience to a specific shock. I refer here to specific shock because one can be resilience to one type of
shock and remain very vulnerable to another. The incremental approach is one where one short
projects short-term "temporal resilience" building outcome is built on by the follow on project. In
contexts of chronic vulnerability like one of south Sudan and couple with weak governance structures,
it definitely requires much more time and many more incremental steps to deal with prioritized
shocks as compared to more stable contexts with good governance structures.
5. Walter Mwasaa, facilitator of the discussion, CARE, Bangladesh
I would like to thank the current contributors to this debate for their thought provoking reflections on
the challenges of ensuring more sustained outcomes in a very unstable context that is the world we all
live in. This instability is potentially more complex among the disaster and shock prone communities
and individuals that the work we do seeks to support out of perpetual cycle of inadequate readiness
for the shocks.
That said I have come accross some literature that I believe captures some of the salient points in an
analysis of resilience measurement tools that is relevant to this discussion. This is in a paper by Sharifi
A. 2016 (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X16302588). The paper is a
stock take of tools for assessing community resilience.
In the paper he references to the need to acknowledge cross-scale relationships of shocks and
capturing the temporal dynamism of in abilities of communities and individuals to respond to shocks
Sharifi A (2016:631). The two dynamics introduce time and space aspects in measuring resilience . He
continues to introduce the subject of uncertainities which is at the heart of this discussion. With this
the need for iterative assessments and scenario development is brought to the forefront.
The temporal dynamism and uncertainities in resilience measurement are in my opinion easily the
two specific areas that need more focus. Complex as they may be, they point to the obvios need for
deeper analysis accross multiple shocks in both time and impact, past current and future.
As we keep talking it would be interesting to hear of any practical examples out there that have
modelled out specific potential resilience outcomes in a dynamic and unpredictable context.
6. Jan Eijkenaar, Independent, Sudan
Hello,
A person’s resilience starts from conception. A pregnant mother needs to have access to vital
nutrients, foods and (time to) care in a healthy environment for her and her child, to best shield her
baby from malnutrition and debilitating illnesses during the first years of life. Malnutrition
permanently undermines a person’s, its community and country’s resilience and any potential to
develop and thrive in a highly dynamic, changing world.
This is about what I proposed almost 4 years ago on this forum, regarding resilience in the context of
humanitarian and development aid. That ‘resilience’ efforts may be pretty much a non-starter if vital
personal growth and development opportunities are missed out of very early on in life. Has the
approach to resilience since changed, what may ‘resilience’ usefully add today, are there any risks?
Pragmatism is one reason, from my point of view, because prevention is better, and cheaper, than cure,
and because it often makes sense to - from the beginning of a response -also keep an eye on a longer-
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term perspective with a broader view of different sectors and how they link together - if one can, when
in the midst of messy and chaotic emergencies - to try better connect back to governance and longer
term responsibilities - if applicable … - when the acute phase subsides.
Equity, rights and power are other reasons I believe, to affirm the central place that affected persons
and their autonomy - even though in need - must always have in the response (and in general), to
avoid the risk of substitution for the responsibilities of governance and development (as one colleague
once observed: ‘there is a real risk that resilience, quickly and easily, becomes a cheap cop-out for
decent comprehensive development efforts’), and to possibly benefit from change and opportunities
that may be brought about by emergencies too.
This may raise some questions: for whom may a ‘resilience’ concept be useful or true; should the so
called resilient persons not be the first ones to be asked? And would it be right to assume that all
people are equally ‘equipped’ from the outset with a set of intrinsic personal capacities and resources
to help themselves cope with adversity?
Some approaches to resilience seem to ignore a whole ‘non resilient’ part of the population and rather
only focus on those who may ‘bounce back’ after a shock and pursue their ‘development’, thus
excluding a large number of other people who actually had nothing left to ‘bounce back from’ from the
beginning. In those situations, shouldn’t one stop any hair-splitting about the meaning of resilience
and first focus on emergency needs?
Instead, those who are living in perpetual crisis often appear to be gradually forgotten, because their
‘chronic needs’ are not, or not anymore, considered to be emergency needs because ‘not caused by a
sudden shock’, regardless of the severity of their predicament. Chronic malnutrition can be placed in
that category too and the socio-economic destitution and gender-based inequities that often surround
it, and the list goes on, of people who don’t stand a real chance, who’ve at times even been denied a fair
chance before birth.
In response to “… whether or not a minimum time frame exists in which an individual, community or
system should remain resilient to actually qualify as “resilient” …”, isn’t this first of all rather a
question for people and communities directly concerned?
When it comes to chronic needs and their irreversible adverse consequences on personal
development, power and rights, these have a rather permanent character. Certainly here the question
should also be put to those persons and institution with responsibilities to prevent or address
fundamental underlying causes of these condition and inequities in a comprehensive and ultimately
political way.
If ‘resilience’ is strong enough an approach to openly and pro-actively expose and address the inherent
questions of power that underlie these permanent chronic states, be it chronic malnutrition, food
insecurity, gender inequities or else, then perhaps the temporal outlook may positively change and my
friend will be proven wrong, that ‘resilience’ it isn’t a poor ‘technical’ surrogate for fundamental just
cooperation and comprehensive governance. I hope so!
Best greetings, Jan.
7. Mandar Vaidya, Grassroots Initiative, India
Hello and Greetings from India.
This is really a thought provoking discussion. I am a development and Disaster Risk Reduction
practitioner. I mostly work with rural communities and grassroots NGOs here. Most of my thoughts
are based on my experience of interacting with community members.
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Well, the first thought is "Resilience is a process, where by persons attain ability to cope or adapt
with the stresses induced by the changing natural, social, political, cultural and
economic environment." In this regard we can identify key qualities of resilience in short term,
however we can not cosider this as complete resilience.
Since the stresses and shocks are combined outcome of natural and human made systems nature of
resilience also becomes complex and in my perception it is very difficult to identify a framework
providing comprehensive indicators for Resilience as outcome, may it be short term or long term.
However it is possible to identify or design a comprehensive framework providing process oriented
indicators for measuring state of resilience. One needs to understand that nature personal and
community based resilience will differ from communities to communities it is also essential to look in
to diversity and should come up with a broad process oriented indicators which can be adapted as per
the context.
8. Lal Manavado, University of Oslo affiliate, Norway
On resilience
The question, whether there is a minimum time frame in which an individual, community or
system should remain resilient to qualify as "resilient" has some interesting aspects. Let me
mention at the outset that I shall steer well clear of the Metaphysics of the attribute.
I think it would be a fair question to ask, why bother about the resilience of a person, a group or a
system? Unless we can give a satisfactory answer to this query, resilience would be a matter of
indifference to us. It would be reasonable to suggest that resilience is desirable because it serves our
interests in some way, hence it has a value.
This is a crucial point. Two self-evident inferences follow from it, viz., resilience of something X may be
valuable to an individual or to a group of people, and secondly, duration of its value depends on how
long an individual or a group would regard the purpose X serves as valuable.
For example, bio-diversity in agriculture makes it more resilient to stresses to which it may be
subjected. But the adaptation of mono-culture and factory farms has deprecated the value of the
former even though the latter is more vulnerable to such stresses. So, we do not seem to value
resilience if a less resilient system enables us to gain a greater financial profit.
For reasons which are not always rational, our dietary tastes and the global food requirements have
varied throughout history. These changes the degree of resilience ecosystem services should possess
to enable us to meet our dietary needs. Thus, it is difficult to see how one could envisage a notion of
resilience independent of people’s desires which change, hence, resilience unchanged by time.
I shall not muddy the water by any reference to a certain theory. However, it is fairly easy to ascertain
the adverse effects of incidents that affect large number of people or systems than those of repeated,
discreet minor events that affects few individuals or a part of a system.
But, if we remember that a network of causal links may spread from an individual or a part of a system
and that repetition of minor adverse events would repeatedly affect those links, it is easy to see that
their collective effect could be serious loss of resilience.
However, this does not change the major determinants of resilience, for dealing with external threats
to resilience assumes that resilience of X is worthwhile, therefore we need to take steps to preserve or
enhance it. So, I suggest we regard resilience with reference to our values, and strive to make them
reasonable.
Best wishes! Lal Manavado.
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9. Robert Mutisi, Manica Boards and Doors, Zimbabwe
I personally believe that for a community to be resilient it has to continuously assess and address
issues related to vulnerability. This follows a cyclic pattern and is a continuous process. It is for sure
very difficult to give specific outcomes per any given time since the situation is continuously changing.
There are a number of strategies which can be used by communities for them to remain and continue
to become more resilient. Some of the major strategies that are put in place within communities
include, alternatives, changing consciousness and hold on actions. Some other strategies include
having a compelling vision, sharing resources and maintaining a health ecosystem diversity through
sustainable management. Application of such strategies has no time limit. In trying to be resilient old
and new strategies can be used. Let us not forget that we have local knowledge/ Indigenous
knowledge and modern knowledge which can be used by communities to be resilient. The new
knowledge is built on the existing knowledge in most communities.
What I know from the community I come from is that, important assets in the reduction of
vulnerabilities lies within the people and groups within my community and this has been supported by
Morrow (2008) and Lerch (2015). People within my community are viewed as active agents in the
process and they possess local knowledge, skills and connections which are very important resources
in building and maintaining resilience (Murphy, 2007).
The use of tools such as social barometer, community asset mapping, community appreciative inquiry
and ABC (Attitude, behaviour and context) will see communities building resilience but this has to be
continuously looked at since the environment is always changing and cannot be given any time frame
hence strategies and tools to deal with resilience must also keep changing.
10. Mike Jones, Swedish Biodiversity Centre, Sweden
Walter Mwasaa raises important matters with regard to our understanding of resilience in socialecological systems and the design and implementation of “resilience building” projects. My response
comes from a complex systems perspective rather than a simple mechanistic system perspective.
The short answer to Walter’s question is that there cannot be a minimum time frame within which an
individual, community or any kind of complex adaptive system remains resilient. Firstly, resilience is an
emergent property of complex systems, which means that resilience changes constantly in relation to
the interactions between the internal components of the system and larger system(s) within which it is
embedded. The fit between those internal changes processes, and changes in the larger system will
determine whether the individual or community: survives and recovers from the shock; expires because
it does not have the capacity to adapt to that shock; or survives and changes in some significant way that
enhances its capacity to survive future shocks.
Any short term outcomes that “build resilience” can only be short term, because we cannot predict how
living beings will continue to grow and adapt and we cannot predict what kinds of shock might occur in
the future. Complex systems are not predictable and require us to constantly learn and adapt as the
world in which we live changes around us.
From a complex systems perspective, the idea that we can build resilience using short term mechanistic,
economistic policies and projects is illogical because the underlying assumption of predictability is false.
The outcome of the mismatch is that lots of money is being spent on doing the wrong thing by people
who understandably yet illogically expect that resilience can be built in the same way as infrastructure
and technology are built. The problem is that in industrial societies we still believe that scientific
determinism will provide solutions to complex problems. Our approach to economics, the law and much
of the practice of science management is based on the belief that complexity is reducible and ultimately
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predictable. There are no solutions to problems in complex systems in the sense that problems of math,
physics and engineering can be solved. We can only learn and adapt to change as it occurs, or by learning
the lessons of the past.
There is an interesting summary of the discussion about development resilience and social-ecological
system resilience here http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol21/iss3/art40/
11. Temesgen Kebede, Higher Education Institution, Ethiopia
I have worked on the food security, vulnerability, and resilience of farm households in Ethiopia. While
I was working, I came to know that resilience status of farm households to climate variability was
really a surprise even to me. I defined resilience into seven components. As you might know, that
resilience is not captured per se. Through the components, it is very easy to capture and measure the
resilience status of farm households.
Factors that make households resilient to shocks and stresses include social safety nets, basic services
particularly public services, food and income access, agricultural productivity and production boosting
technologies, asset and wealth accumulation mechanisms, adaptive capacity and the stability of the
system for a certain time. These components are also latent variables which can not be observed per
se; hence, collect variables that define the latent variables.
When we talked about resilience, we need to see the possibilities to have well defining components in
detail. Let me take one example that clearly defines how strong the components related to the
resilience status of farm households in case of Ethiopia. Inter-household interdependence is high and
therefore it is good for social protection and social safety nets program to flourish. This variable is one
component among others that define resilience. Social lives interdependence encourages socioeconomic and cultural protection that increase boldness of the communities and enable to build the
strong bond among inter households who are members among themselves. Anything happens to one
member of the group other members react very quickly to their members’ difficult situation.
In my paper entitled “Econometric Analysis of Rural Households’ Resilience to Food Insecurity in West
Shoa, Ethiopia” I found out that for instance social safety net increase the resilience of farm
households. Informal social organization namely Equib and Eddir serve to tie social interaction and
bond. Any non-member out of Equib or Eddir is isolated from the social interaction, ceremonies like
wedding, farming activities, left to ditches, have no visitors when the family head/members are sick
and remain poor.
The wrong way to frame resilience brought about undesirable result. In any case, the time required to
define resilience is crucial.
12. Ricardo Zebeda Gaitán, Colectivo Social por el Derecho a la Alimentación de
Guatemala, Guatemala
Original contribution in Spanish
La resiliencia es una característica social que se construye históricamente y se renueva
permanentemente, según los riesgos a los que se enfrenta un colectivo social amplio. Sin embargo, la
reflexión de un hecho convertido en problema social, y la previsión de su repetición, no implica
necesariamente que se haya logrado alcanzar un grado de resiliencia adecuado. Es necesario
identificar los ciclos históricos para prever un adecuado abordaje de un problema que se repite
constantemente. Se requiere asumir decisiones institucionales, por lo que el Estado además debe
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prever los índices de la vulnerabilidad a los que se expone una población identificando acciones de
corto, mediano y largo plazo, que lleven a una situación en la que la vulnerabilidad disminuye a su
mínima expresión.
La resiliencia no implica unicamente una reacción temporal o esporádica a una situación de riesgo.
Implica la acumulación de capacidades humanas, de infraestructura adecuada, de recursos
suficientes: capital humano y físico, que logren constituir una cultura de la prevención. Planteo que los
proyectos deben orientarse en dos sentidos: las acciones con las personas más expuestas al riesgo y las
acciones con las entidades creadas para la atención del riesgo.
English translation
Resilience is a social feature that is built up over time and continuously renewed, according to the
risks faced by a broad social group. However, discussing this social problem and forecasting its
recurrence does not necessarily imply the accomplishment of an adequate level of resilience.
Identifying the historical cycles is necessary to adequately address a recurrent problem. Institutional
decisions must be adopted. Governments must also predict the vulnerability indexes of the population,
identifying short, medium and long term actions leading to their minimization.
Resilience does not only entail a temporary or sporadic reaction to a risk situation. It involves building
up human capacities, adequate infrastructures, sufficient resources: human and physical capital
creating a culture of prevention. Projects should be oriented in two directions: interventions targeting
those who are most at risk and involving organizations created to address risks.
13. Murasi Mulupi Murasi, Agricultural Development Corporation, Kenya
‘Beyond “temporal” resilience: results that withstand the test of time
Communities, individuals and systems experience shocks/stressors at different levels and magnitude.
Some of these shocks/stressors are sporadic and difficult to mitigate such as acts of God while others
are progressive over time like the vagaries of climate change. These shocks/stressors may emanate
from within the affected communities or systems and are considered easy to address as the causal
factors are predetermined. However, there are factors outside the realm of the affected individuals,
communities or systems that are often complex and unfamiliar. In the short term, the more complex a
need and resultant intervention, the less resilient the beneficiary community. Put otherwise, it may
take longer for the beneficiary community to become less vulnerable if their stressors are complex and
the intervention even more complex. Regardless, the impact of an intervention on the beneficiaries
will determine their resilience.
Resilience is built over time. Long term interventions (programs) would be the best yard stick for
measuring vulnerability levels. Nonetheless, there are other considerations in determining how
resilient an individual, community or system is.
1. The duration an intervention has stood relevant to its course. Resilience is fostered around
sustained knowledge gathering and dissemination, empowerment and preparedness. Done over
time, a community is able to overcome its shocks and bounce back faster and stronger.
2. A resilient community should be innovative to the changing nature of the existing shocks be it
climate change, global security, trade or disasters.
3. A resilient community thrives amid shocks/stressors. It is one that is able to understand the nature
of its shocks, predict occurrence, mitigate effects, and lead an almost normal life bearing in mind
the presence of stressors.
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4. Resilience is best described by a community/system that is self-sustaining in the presence of
shocks. Effectives systems are put in place to ensure minimum external help is required during pre
and post occurrence of shocks.
5. A resilient system is able to support weaker systems experiencing similar stressors through
sharing success stories and support models.
There is no minimum time frame in which a community, individual or system should remain resilient
to be regarded as "resilient". Even the most stable and formidable entities buckle to shocks and
stressors at some point. Constant reevaluation and strengthening of systems is the surest way of
ensuring preparedness, mitigation of effects, fast recovery and bounce back. That is a lifelong
endeavor.
14. Max Blanck, FAO, Italy
Dear all,
I would like to share with you a FAO publication that might be of interest in the context of our current
online discussion.
The publication titled "Africa Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2016: the Challenges
of Building Resilience to Shocks and Stresses" introduces a new tool for the understanding of the food
security and nutritional status.
This Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) is an experience-based metric of food insecurity severity
that relies on people’s direct responses to questions regarding their access to adequate food.
In addition to providing information on this tool, the publication delivers a snapshot of the current
situation in Africa and analyses resilience in the context of climate change and conflicts.
You can download the publication in English here: http://bit.ly/2moylep
All the best
Max
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FAO
15. Andrea Sánchez Enciso, FAO, Italy
Dear all,
This conversation clearly exposes the complexities of resilience-building interventions and puts at the
center of the debate a key objective of rural development which is sustainability.
In this sense, I wish to add an important perspective, which is gender and empowerment.
We all agree that women and men have specific and complementary roles in agricultural development.
We all acknowledge that persistent gender inequalities in access to resources, services, information
and knowledge are a key impediment to sustainable rural development. As a result, in relation to
resilience, women and men might be exposed to different kinds of shocks and stressors and their
coping strategies might differ as well. Bearing this in mind, it is crucial that development interventions
are designed in a way that address these inequalities in a sustainable way. If we think about the
temporal aspects of resilience, specific strategies and measures need to be put in place to prevent and
respond to GBV as this extreme manifestation of gender inequality has devastating consequences
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(food insecurity, stigma, illness, collapse of social structures) which severely limits efforts in building
resilience. Strategies should not solely consider women and men’s immediate vulnerabilities, but also
addressing their specific needs and priorities. This often implies transforming gender relations and
tackling power imbalances within households, communities and organizations. In this way resilient
interventions become empowerment interventions, from survival to thrive: the more empowered
women and men will be, the more resilient livelihoods they will be able to build.
FAO has longstanding experience in promoting participatory approaches that contribute to rural
people’s empowerment, gender equality and resilience. The community-based and gender
transformative approach of the FAO-Dimitra Clubs, is a good example of how rural women and men
and entire rural communities take their development in hands and promote social cohesion and
resilient livelihoods for all.
16. Rebecca Pietrelli, FAO, ESA Division, Italy
Dear all,
The role of time is a hot topic for the literature on resilience measurement. By definition resilience to
food nsecurity is a dynamic concept. Therefore the time frame of the analysis matters for identifying
resilient households.
According to the conceptual framework of the FAO-Resilience Index Measurement and Analysis (RIMA
II) approach, resilient households, when affected by a shock at time 1, suffer a reduction in their food
security at time 2 but are able to (partially or totally) recover the loss in food security between time
2 and 3. Please see http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5665e.pdf at page 35 as a reference.
The dynamics of the food security is not easily addressed by an empirical point of view. There is still
much to know on the role of: (i) the time span between the shock occurrence and the recovery, namely
the time when the household bounce back to its previous food security level; (ii) the time span between
the recovery and the occurrence of another shock; (iii) the effect of the second shock on food security
reduction with respect the effect of the first shock.
In my view, the “test of time” matters in terms of understanding (i) the speed of recovery after the
occurrence of the shock; (ii) the persistence on the comfortable level of food security after the shock
occurrence; (iii) the learning capacity with respect to the history of the past shocks.
Households with a similar resilience capacity (based on observable characteristics as level of education,
productive and non-productive assets, income-generating activities, etc.) may show heterogeneous
speed of recovery, persistency in the comfortable zone after the shock occurrence and learning capacity.
Furthermore, the “test of time” matters for identifying households resilient over a long time period.
The household characteristics may explain why some households remain resilient over year while other
households are not able to do that. An interesting working paper adopting the FAO-RIMA II methodology
(http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5473e.pdf ) explores this topic in the case of Uganda. The analysis shows that
a higher level of education of household members as well as the participation into self-enterprises
characterize the households able to maintain a high resilience capacity over time.
Identifying the household characteristics that ensure long-lasting resilience capacity may have
dramatically important implications for the policy makers!
Best,
Rebecca Pietrelli
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17. Walter Mwasaa, facilitator of the discussion, CARE, Bangladesh
I again thank all those who have so far provided input to the discussion. The participants pointing to
variables to be measured, capacities to be developed and the introduction of gender and women
dimensions and outcomes all reaffirm how complex this conversation and resilience as a whole is.
I would like to request members to share any successes that they have witnessed indicative of
improving capacities to respond to shocks. The examples need not be scientific or quantitative.
Focusing on time may be misleading, yet only after a definite period has lapsed we can look back and
acknowledge that the resilience capacities are withstanding shocks and are not being eroded.
There are a divergent realities in households, communities and systems. However, it also must not be
lost on us that our ability to (closely to accurately) predict and model outcomes of shocks and stresses
in households in the context of their changing capacities is going to be necessary to ensure that the
right investments are made. Such a model could address the temporal resilience issue and further
predict critical support and / or moments in which communities or individuals become vulnerable.
18. Robert Mutisi, Manica Boards and Doors, Zimbabwe (second contribution)
Hello Walter Mwasaa.
My community is ever increasing on its capacities to respond to shocks. We are a beekeeping group in
Zimbabwe and as we look backwards, the past few years we have been improving in the way we
respond to shocks. We really acknowledge our resilience capabilities that has enabled the households
and community to remain functional. Our desire and passion to keep bees as a livelihood option has
increased in the community and a number of households are getting some honey for their own
consumption, are making sales to generate income that enables them to send children to school and
also schools are running clubs under the beekeepers Association and this has enabled the club
members to pay for their fees and also the generated income at the school has also been used to buy
stationary at the school. The model of schools getting into beekeeping is also attracting many schools
who are likely to join the Association soon. We have also as beekeepers encouraged one another to
establish trees that go with crops in the same area and also those that can be planted on the same farm
with crops but on an area that is not good for crops. Such trees include avocado, peaches, mangoes,
citrus and apples. Some exotics planted on other areas included Eucalyptus species , acacia species etc
and these are multipurpose trees which are bee friendly. Also crops are being inter-cropped near
apiaries with sunflower, sugar beans, cow peas, soya beans okra, water melons, butter nuts and
pumpkins being the most favored. Edible weeds such as black jack is also left to thrive in areas which
are closer to apiary sites as this is an important source of bee food. The attached photos show areas
closer to apiary sites that are being used to produce crops, fruits and honey at the same time. This
model that we are using integrates crop production and bee farming and provides several livelihoods
options to our community.
From ROBERT
19. Lal Manavado, University of Oslo affiliate, Norway (second contribution)
What Makes Resilience Worthwhile and How to Enhance it
Going back to my previous note, resilience would be worthless to us unless it serves some purpose
that is important to us. Topology of the visible side of the moon changes everyday because it is
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bombarded by thousands of meteorites of varying sizes. So, lunar topology is not resilient, but we are
not concerned because it does not matter.
But when we talk of the resilience of something, it does not make sense to examine a discreet
inanimate object for this quality. For example, it is difficult to see what somebody means if a person
begins to talk about the resilience of one’s family jewels. But I am sure everybody would agree that it
makes sense to talk about the resilience of a system that is useful to us, for instance, a food system.
Here we face the very serious danger of perverting a concept unless we are extremely careful in what
we see as a system. In theory and practice, any single living thing can be seen as a ‘living system’, but if
this is extended to embrace a group of individuals, most terrible results can ensue. Please recall that
every dreadful dictatorship of the past wittingly or unwittingly saw their populations as systems that
should be made resilient enough to tolerate every criticism or threat from inside and outside by using
demagogic propaganda, so that the leadership may benefit from people’s resilience while it cost them
their freedom and priceless cultural heritage.
I think this caution applies with equal force to things like food systems that are a collection of people,
animals, plants and physical objects like various machines, because before we try to find out how we
may make a system resilient, it is crucial to ascertain the overall desirability of it. For instance,
intensive mono-culture may seem desirable from the reductive view point that everything that
increases global food production is good. But weighed against its environmental consequences, its own
vulnerability, cost, and failure to significantly promote rural unemployment, etc., it is clear that it is
undesirable to promote its resilience.
I think this preamble is necessary as a frame of reference to any discussion of resilience, because
unless it is firmly anchored in one of our justifiable needs, eg. nutrition, a discussion on how one may
enhance the resilience of a system would prove quite unmanageable. Consider now, made in general
terms, this discussion could justifiably include how the head quarter’s staff can make XVIth Army Corp
resilient enough to withstand persistent enemy attacks on a broad front at Z.
This military illustration brings out another point, i.e., we need to have a clear idea of the likely threats
to the resilience of our system before we can reasonably begin to think about how to deal with them to
enhance the system’s resilience. True, it is not always possible to know in advance all emerging threats
to a system’s resilience, nevertheless apart from appropriate use and deployment of its non-living
elements, strengthening the innate robustness and flexibility of the living elements of a system seems
to be the best choice open to us to enhance a system’s resilience.
I know this may seem too general. But as I said before, we need to know clearly what system we wish
to make resilient, what are the qualitative and quantitative aspects of its output, will the present
quality and quantity of its output remain sufficient for the foreseeable future, does the system and its
present output needs changes in them, etc. Once we know the answers to these questions, we can then
begin to anticipate threats to its adequate operation, and then undertake steps to ensure its resilience.
Best wishes!
Lal Manavado.
20. Arshad Malik, PMAS-Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi, Pakistan
We are working on enhancing livestock productivity in arid areas of Pakistan (Northren Punjab) as a
tool to improve farmers resiliance to adverse weather condition and climate change. Wheat Livestock
farming system is practiced in the area. We are sucessful in improving livestock productivity. Beef
enterprise is more resiliance to climate change in the areas with medium fodder forage
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availability. Goat (Mutton) enterprise is successful in low foodder forage areas with low rainfall
(about 200mm). Farmers consider livestock as a lender of last resort in these communities. with the
development of urbanisation, milk enterprise development is added to farm household income.
farmers with milk enterprise are more prosperous than other farmers. with the passage of time
resiliance increasing in the area. Major threat to farmer resilance are human population and family
sturucture.
21. Amy Giliam, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
Dear All,
My masters thesis is looking at the impact of agroecology on the adaptability of smallholders in
Limpopo, South Africa. Seven individuals from communities in Limpopo participated in a three month
agroecology training programme in August 2016. Upon returning to their communities, many of the
individuals have either adapted their farming practices or have begun sharing their knowledge of
agroecology with local smallholder farmers in order to assist them in adapting their practices.
Although I have only begun the research, it has become evident over the past few months that
providing an evaluation of whether the agroecology training has been successful or not in improving
the smallholders' adaptive capacity, and thus the resilience of their communities, is not yet possible. It
is difficult to specify a minimum time frame to remain resilient, as it is clear that developing
capabilities that improve individuals' or groups' adaptive capacity or resilience is context dependent.
For instance, South Africa was experiencing one of its worst droughts in decades but in February and
March, the country received significant rainfall. This has major implications for farmers in Limpopo, as
the drought in that province was particularly severe. My thoughts are that perhaps the focus should
rather lie on continously reinforcing individuals or a system's ability to adapt to change given the
contextual nature of shocks and crises that emerge.
22. Dele Raheem, Arctic Centre / University of Lapland, Finland
"Resilience" to food security in relation to time is an important issue that can be debated from
different perspectives. The capacity of human beings to be resilient when faced with certain conditions
is a product of several factors.
Food as a biological product is subject to life cycles that are natural and this is related to time.
Biological systems are often in cycles e.g carbon, nitrogen and other elemental cycles can have
profound effects with time. Research that study these cycles can generate data to product likely events
and how it can affect the food system. A case in point, is climate change and its adverse effects. How
individuals / communities/ regions will be resilient to such changes will be a product of how well they
are equiped to deal with such. This is one of the reasons why food systems are often complex and need
a very multidisciplinary approach.
In regions where there is a strong communal spirit to share traditional foods that are linked to the
cultural lifestyle e.g in indigenous communities in the Arctic regions, the ability to cope with food
insecurity is strengthened. The community will be less resilient when the opportunity of sharing
traditional fish, games is limited especially in cases where there is limited income to purchase
imported foods. "The ability to save for the rainy day" will depend on how the food system has been
managed from the farm to plate.
Best,
Dele Raheem
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23. Marco d’Errico, FAO, Italy
Dear all,
The question on whether or not a minimum time frame exists in which an individual, community or
system should remain resilient to actually qualify as "resilient" is well posed and dramatically relevant
for policy purposes. My initial reaction is both yes and no. YES, if a household manages to survive a
shock it can be considered as “resilient”. NO, if it survives the first shock and does not survive the
second it is not resilient. Therefore there is not a time frame in which one unit of analysis can be
considered as resilient; there is only an outcome, surviving or not surviving; or, under a more nuanced
perspective, if the shock permanently damages its capacity or not.
Time matters in resilience analysis and programming, because of many reasons:
Some intervention may be more effective on the long- rather than on the short-period (think about
education).
Some shocks may have a more devastating effect if repeated (say a household can resist to one
drought but not to three consecutive droughts).
Some internal capacities (say “internal-psychological” resilience) may be deteriorated after an iterated
experienced unsecure situation.
Some coping strategies may translate into fatal asset or consumption disruption.
How can we factor this aspects into a consistent measurement framework?
We in FAO are trying to remove the linearity assumption of our RIMA in order to detect long- and
short-term effects on resilience.
We are focusing especially on adaptive capacity, as it is the only aspect of resilience that directly deal
with time. In fact adaptation looks at inner capacity of adapting to a new situation which can happen
after every single shock.
Time is important to resilience analysis and measurement in two more aspects. First it bridges
humanitarian and development interventions, by pushing the perspective from short term recovery to
long term development.
Second, as someone correctly pointed out in this online discussion, women and men might be exposed
to different kinds of shocks and stressors and their coping strategies might differ as well. If one
consider, on top of this, that female headed households may have different endowment in term of longterm adaptive capacity, it is clear that specific interventions and analysis must be considered.
24. Joy Muller, IFRC, Switzerland
It requires cross-disciplinary joint programming to support communities and enable them to confront
large-scale shocks and stressors. The conclusion with a few recommendations in an article written in
2014 'Adapting to climate change and addressing drought -- learning from the Red Cross Red Crescent
experiences in the Horn of Africa' could be a useful reference.
See https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joy_Muller/publications?pubType=art...
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25. Stefan Pasti, The Community Peacebuilding and Cultural Sustainability (CPCS)
Initiative, United STates of America
Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this discussion.
I am submitting comments on the subject of what kind of human habitats deserve the most attention, as
we focus more and more attention on creating habitats with long term resilience. As my questions and
comments will illustrate, I believe that long term resilience--in terms of both systems and habitats--will
be, and must be, closely related to what we arrive at as the best models for carbon neutral economies,
and what we arrive at as the best models for ecologically sustainable habitats.
I am agreement with Mr. Mwasaa, in his introduction to this “resilience” topic, that “the rigor in
identifying, understanding, analysing and addressing the multifaceted determinants of resilience is
often the driver of success”.
Specifically, my questions, comments, and observations (detailed in the attached file) are centered by
the following three very-much-related questions-Of the two following descriptions of habitats which could be our primary focus for global
warming/climate change mitigation with the hope of holding global warming to 1.5oC---megacities with more than one million people, and with sometimes over 15 million people
or
--medium to small sized cities (with populations of 100,000 people, or less) and towns-which of the above two habitat descriptions have the strongest likelihood of leading us quickly, and most
decisively, to holding global warming below 2oC?
which of the above two habitat descriptions have the best chance of being our foundation and support
for ecological sustainability on into the future? and
which of the two habitats descriptions above would represent more resilience (and less vulnerabilities)
if we only manage to hold warming to 2.5oC or 3oC?
The attached file (titled “Questions for CCLS17 Panel Discussion--Diminishing Returns re
Megacities?”)(8 pages) is a question and comment statement I submitted to the Cambridge Climate
Lecture Series (23 February-16 March 2017; University of Cambridge, UK; hashtag #CCLS17). Then I
was directing my question and comment statement specifically to the Panel Discussion, which was
livestreamed on Thursday 16 March 2017, from 18:30-20:00 GMT.
Although my questions and comments (it is the same document in the above link, and in the attached
file) were directed specifically to the Cambridge Climate Lecture Series, I believe those same questions
and comments are highly relevant to the topic of this discussion... and that long term resilience, as a
feature of human habitats--and what human habitats will be both most useful and practical in holding
global warming below 2oC, and our best foundation for ecological sustainability long into the future)-are three subjects which are very, very closely related.
And I believe that megacities with more than one million people, and with sometimes over 15 million
people, are very seriously over-rated as a primary focus for carbon neutral economies, as a foundation
for ecologically sustainable habitats, as a base for solution-oriented activity on many other critical
challenges (especially those challenges related to solving social issues, but also challenges related to
water conservation and food security)--and thus very seriously over-rated as a primary focus for long
term resilience. We would do much better to focus as much as possible on medium to small sized cities
(with populations of 100,000 people, or less) and towns--if we want to build long term resilience into
human habitats.
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I hope my contribution is helpful to the discussion.
For a Peaceful and Sustainable Future,
Stefan Pasti
26. Lemma Belay Ababu, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Ethiopia
Thanks Walter for bringing up this thematically important but practically overlooked topic among
actors working on resilience building. I have been working on resilience building interventions for over
five years among the pastoralist communities in Ethiopia and Somalia.
Defining a minimum time frame in which an individual, community or system should remain resilient
depends on the type of disaster. A group resilient to drought might not be similarly resilient to conflict
or disease outbreak or other type of disaster. Thus, identifying the type of shock or stress to which an
individual or communities are resilient to needs to be defined while speaking about the time frame of
resilience. For example, in the drylands of the Horn of Africa, drought and conflict are the common
phenomenon frequently eroding the resilience capacity of the pastoralist communities. In the past, the
pastoralists in this part of the world were efficiently managing their water and pasture resources while
switching between wet and dry season grazing areas; and mobility was a key aspect of their resilience.
However, over the past couple of decades, the increased frequency of disaster (almost every 3 to 4 years)
accompanied by severe land degradation and wrong perception of the policy makers about the
pastoralist livelihood and the increased tendency to sedentarize them has had detrimental impacts to
the resilience of pastoralists. In addition, the type of livelihood and means of production also determines
the time frame of community resilience. Most of the agricultural production systems (both crop and
livestock) in the Horn of Africa (HoA) are rain fed and thus highly sensitive to climate variabilities. An
irrigation-based agricultural production could be resilient for longer period of time than the one relying
on rain fall.
Although there are several ongoing interventions aiming at building community resilience to mainly
drought disasters in the HoA, they are mostly quite short-term in their nature and apparently unable to
address the root causes of vulnerability. Programmes aiming to address resilience building need to be
focused and flexible enough and at the same time there must be enough funding to scale up or out
promising pilot intervenstions. The increased frequencies of different disaster phenomena are
challenging the development gains of long-term resilience building initiatives in the arid and semi-arid
areas of Africa and thus making determination of timeframe of community resilience ever difficult. In
this regard, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, just like some other donors is
introducing contingency funding mechanism (also called the crisis modifier) to its long-term (12 years)
resilience building programmes. This will help minimize disaster impacts to the development gains of
our interventions while ensuring an effective and timely response action in disaster situations.
In general, despite more number of actors in resilience building these days, the overall pastoralist
communities’ resilience especially in the HoA is significantly dwindling. Pastoralists were better
resilient in the past than today. More often, resources are also available for emergency situations than
longer-term development interventions which could potentially address the structural causes of
vulnerability. In addition, early warning information is timely available sometimes but it is not delivered
to the communities in a way they could easily understand and take up early actions. Therefore,
community knowledge of early warning information is another important aspect to be considered visà-vis the time frame of community resilience.
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27. Mike Jones, Swedish Biodiversity Centre, Sweden (second contribution)
Dear All,
One of the things that I notice about this discussion is that people are using "resilience” rather loosely
to convey a general idea about being able to recover from disaster, or be more adaptable to climate
change. We use the word “sustainability” in the same general way. This is good for general discussions
but we need something more focused for food security projects and policies. For example the
Resilience Alliance, a group of scientists that does research on resilience in social-ecological systems
uses this definition:
“The capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still
retain essentially the same function, structure and feedbacks, and therefore identity, that is, the
capacity to change in order to maintain the same identity.”
And a social-ecological systems is defined as:
“Integrated system of ecosystems and human society with reciprocal feedback and interdependence.
The concept emphasizes the humans-in-nature perspective.”
There are a number of other key definitions in the same paper:
Folke, C., S. R. Carpenter, B. Walker, M. Scheffer, T. Chapin, and J. Rockström. 2010. Resilience thinking:
integrating resilience, adaptability and transformability. Ecology and Society 15(4): 20. [online]
URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss4/art20/
The paper discusses the relationship between resilience, adaptability and transformability, which are
three key concepts for understanding the management of change processes in any social-ecological
system.
Practical application of resilience theory is described in relation to a farming system in western
Australia where poor soil and water management practice led to a major salination problem and
decline in wheat production: Walker, B. H., N. Abel, J. M. Anderies, and P. Ryan. 2009. Resilience,
adaptability, and transformability in the Goulburn-Broken Catchment, Australia. Ecology and Society
14(1): 12. [online] URL: http://www. ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss1/art12/
A couple of points about assessing resilience:
1. Social-ecological systems are open systems and influenced by both their sub-systems and the larger
systems of which they are a part. A family farm is a subsystem of a rural village, which is a subsystem
of a landscape, which is a subsystem of … These open sub-systems are continually evolving over time
and the resilience of any one of these subsystems will increase or decrease as a consequence of the
multiple feed-back interactions that occur between them. For management purposes, one has to be
clear about the boundaries of the system being managed and the primary feedbacks that are either
driving the system in a particular direction (reinforcing feedback) or balancing feedbacks that are
returning a system to an earlier condition. This assessment is about resilience of a specified system to
specified shocks and enables managers to assess the risk that a system (a farm, or a farming
community, or a agricultural landscape will suddenly change into an undesirable state. The Australian
example shows how poor water management changed the farming landscape into an undesirable
state.
2. In addition to assessing the resilience of a system to specific socks and stressors, the status and
trend of a number of attributes that enhance the potential of a system to change (either to adapt or to
transform) can be assessed in what is know as an assessment of general resilience as opposed to
specified resilience described about. An example of this kind of assessment is given in this paper:
Nemec, K. T., J. Chan, C. Hoffman, T. L. Spanbauer, J. A. Hamm, C. R. Allen, T. Hefley, D. Pan, and P.
Shrestha. 2013. Assessing resilience in stressed watersheds. Ecology and Society 19(1):
34. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-06156-190134
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The two kinds of assessment are complimentary.
There is a simple resilience assessment of a case in Tanzania where land use practice has undergone
two major changes over the last fifty years in response to: firstly a development aid intervention to
improve agricultural production that led desertification (an unforeseen and undesirable change); and
secondly to a restoration effort that put local people and their knowledge back into the land use
decision making process. The case description is available
here: https://www.iucn.org/content/shinyanga-forest.
There is a range of cases reporting resilience, loss of resilience and transformation in arctic
communities that have been severely affected by climate change posted on the Stockholm Resilience
website http://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-streames/complex-ad.... These
include cases about communities whose livelihood strategies include fishing, herding and hunting.
28. Mike Jones, Swedish Biodiversity Centre, Sweden (third contribution)
Following my two earlier posts about resilience in the context of social-ecological systems, I attach a
policy brief written in 2013 that provides more information on the science of resilience in socialecological systems and briefly analyses three cases from different parts of Africa. One aspect of these
studies is the effects of colonial and post colonial governance on landscapes and rural poverty that
have to be addressed as part of a long term project that either restores the landscape to something like
its original state; or transforms it into something new. Other important aspects are the long term
vision of those who live on the land, the willingness of development agents to work with people on the
land, and national government policies that support the emergence of local self-sufficiency and
adaptive capacity.
Attachment:
http://www.fao.org/fsnforum/sites/default/files/discussions/contributions/SIANI%20Policy%20bri
ef%20-%20Food%20security%20-%20web.pdf
29. Walter Mwasaa, facilitator of the discussion, CARE, Bangladesh
What a wealth of contributions!
I may not have a model for resilience in the light of time and uncertainties, but nonetheless I feel that
my universe of what resilience entails has drastically expanded! Terminology such as “bounceforward”, a metaphorical illustration of the need to achieve transformational change and not just
bounce back to pre-shock state, is probably one of the most compelling concepts.
The discussion delved into using available modelling of weather and predictable changes so that
communities can be better prepared for shocks and stressors. The concept of geo-spatial
considerations came out strongly –‘how big should we bite’ in resilience building.
The complexity of shocks, dwindling resources, the fatigue caused by limited success, the ever present
evolving gender and demographic differences and how the divergence impacts resilience building. In
rural and closely knit communities, the societal set-up and how that is being affected by social and
geopolitical determinants, market and climate factors were brought to the forefront. In preventing that
shocks result in impact to a point of no-return, the pressing need to identify the breaking points at
which resilience gains and or ‘critical’ thresholds may be crossed as if to provide an umbrella to all
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Beyond “temporal” resilience: results that can withstand the test of time
PROCEEDINGS
these concepts the simple underlying question – what resilience capacities are we trying to build and
their relevance to the shocks and stressors at hand.
One other contribution that resonated quite strongly with me was the whole issue of time as factor not
just in terms of overall period for a complete analysis but a closer look at intervals between shocks,
large and small as they vary and how that plays into critical seasonal or recurrent and predictable
events such as rain, conflict and flu seasons.
Lastly, the impact on policy and planning was given focus, it underlines the need for impact and
success especially when governments are prioritizing limited resources.
I come out of this wiser and in the search for an effective model for determining enduring resilience
outcomes in increasingly uncertain contexts, the factors to be considered have been fleshed out. I wish
all of you the best in your resilience building work and look forward to a future discussion in which we
will have covered more ground scientifically, and, more importantly, in the communities and
populations, our individual and collective effort target.
Thank you all.
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