Suchergebnisse

At their core, donor-funded climate and disaster resilience programmes provide goods and services to help build assets and minimise the impact of shocks and stresses on people's lives and livelihoods. Little is known, however, about the way local risk governance systems and the broader institutional arrangements, in which they are embedded, mediate people's access to these services and therefore lead to improved resilience. Drawing on Social-Ecological Systems theory, we explore those characteristics of risk governance systems believed to be more favourable for building resilience at the community level in different developing country contexts. These include: diversity; polycentricism and connectivity; decentralisation and flexibility; participation and community engagement; and, learning and innovation. This review paper proposes a conceptual framework and assesses the evidence linking risk governance and access to the services needed to build resilient outcomes, drawing particularly on evidence from the Sahel and Horn of Africa. In doing so, we can start to understand where the entry points might be for strengthening resilience and the conditions needed for community-level initiatives to be brought to scale from the bottom up.

This paper provides an overview and commentary on a special issue of the journal Disasters that reflects on experiences in resilience-building. Experiences are drawn from two recent DfID-funded programmes in some of the world's most climate-vulnerable countries and contexts. These programmes have focused on scaling up action to build resilience, principally through the expansion and replication of good practices by influencing government policies, plans and investments. The papers provide insights that are each grounded in different contexts and understandings of local realities and the factors that support and undermine people's resilience.