BOX 3.2 RESILIENCE IN THEORY AND PRACTICE: A STORY OF THREE COMMUNITIES
Barrett and Constas (2012) define resilience as a situation in which, over time, a person, household, or community is nonpoor and food secure in the face of various stressors and shocks. Only if that likeli- hood is high and remains so can that person, household, or commu- nity be considered resilient. What might this mean in practice? Here we take an example of three hypothetical communities from the real-world setting of African pastoralism at three points in time: before drought, the peak of the drought, and after drought.
> Community A is relatively resilient. It has three assets that make it so. First, it has a large cattle herd. This means that, even though a drought will kill much of its herd, the community still has enough cattle after drought to rebuild the herd and maintain pastoralism as a viable livelihood. In other words, it has absorp- tive capacity. Second, Community A has the ability to graze and water its animals over a large and diverse geographical area. This herd mobility allows the community to move its animals from the most drought-affected to the least drought-affected areas and to change its migration strategy when needed. It thus has adaptive capacity. Finally, in the wake of previous droughts, some com- munity members left to work in the capital city, where droughts have little or no effect on wages and the remittances sent home. In fact, the community uses these remittances as a form of insur- ance and to build up assets. So it also has built up its transfor-
Higher Community C (Increasingly poor and vulnerable)
mative capacity. At the end of the drought, Community A actu- ally has gained a greater ability to withstand future shocks.
> Community B is on a path to increasing vulnerability, although some indicators might suggest otherwise. It has lost the ability to absorb drought impacts through the traditional strategy of moving cattle and rebuilding the herd. As a result, at the peak of the drought it decides to resort to violence to appropriate the herds, grazing land, and water resources of other groups. Like Commu- nity A, Community B has largely maintained its current well-being, but at the cost of other groups’ welfare. Moreover, its cattle-rus- tling strategy incurs the risks of punishment and further violence, thereby reducing the community’s future capabilities.
> Community C becomes even poorer and more vulnerable. This com- munity’s herd is much smaller, and its grazing and watering mobil- ity have been substantially reduced by a mix of land enclosures, tribal conflict, and irrigation developments. When drought strikes, the herd is badly hit, and the community is left with too few cattle to rebuild the herd to a viable size. Community C becomes depen- dent on emergency relief, and its members switch to a new liveli- hood that is more diversified but also less remunerative: a mix of sedentary mixed crop-livestock farming and casual labor. Without external assistance, it will likely remain in this poverty trap.
Community B (Increasingly vulnerable)
Community A (Resilient)
After drought
Drought peaks
Before drought
After drought
Drought peaks
After Lower Lower Source: Authors. Current welfare drought Higher
Before drought
Drought peaks
Before drought
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Understanding Resilience for Food and Nutrition Security | Chapter 03 | 2013 Global Hunger Index
Future capacity to withstand shocks
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