Some critics have also suggested that resilience is a concept that does not translate well from ecological settings to social settings. They argue that the resilience model does not pay enough attention to social dynamics in general, and to issues of agency and power in particular.2 However, NGOs and other practitioners increasingly challenge this view. They emphasize the resilience-enhancing role played by social process- es, such as community cohesion, good leadership, and individual sup- port of collective action (Twigg 2007; Boyd et al. 2008; Schwarz et al. 2011; VFL 2011). A rigorous assessment of the literature shows, how- ever, that the number of these analyses is still low and the evidence thin (Béné et al. 2012). Others fear that the resilience agenda may be pushed too far,
threatening or diluting the impact of more traditional relief activities. If the relief sector’s performance is benchmarked against its contribu- tion to resilience building, many worthwhile but more narrowly focused relief efforts could lose resources. Enthusiasm for resilience building therefore needs to be tempered by an appreciation for the need for core relief activities and the benefits of specialization. Finally, while resilience usually has positive connotations and
is the goal of many programs and projects, the large majority do not consider its possible downsides. Some coping strategies, such as pros- titution or begging, may strengthen resilience, but to the detriment of well-being and self-esteem. Other coping activities, such as crime, may increase the resilience of one group to the detriment of another per- son’s well-being.3
Moreover, when defined as the rapid return to an ini-
tial state, resilience may be counterproductive in the long run. Resil- ience as “stickiness,” “stubbornness,” or “resistance to change” is clearly not a desirable quality in many circumstances. These concerns are by no means academic. Populations high-
ly exposed to climate change, such as African pastoralists, are the sub- ject of substantial debate over whether herd recovery or diversification out of pastoralism is the best long-term objective. Similarly, the argu- ment that safety-net programs impede out-migration from drought- prone rural areas is relevant. In such a case, resilience without trans- formation, in response to a stressor as significant as climate change, could be an undesirable quality in the long run.
Resilience-Enhancing Interventions As implied, a significant challenge for a resilience framework is to define exactly what value it adds to the current way of doing things. In principle, a resilience framework could add value in two ways. At a strategic level, a resilience framework could encourage governments and development partners to mainstream resilience as a policy and programmatic objective, and to coordinate difference agencies and sectors to achieve that objective. In this strategic sense, it is not obvi- ous that new policy or program instruments are needed to achieve
resilience since improved coordination and prioritization could be suf- ficient in themselves. However, one might also expect a resilience focus to encourage adoption of programs or policies that inno vatively bridge the relief and development sectors (as opposed to specializing in one sector or the other). This raises a question: What types of interventions might build
this bridge between relief and development? An obvious example would be safety-net programs, which meet the criteria for providing social pro- tection, or “relief,” and contributing to development, or “longer-term resilience building.” Social protection typically takes the form of food, cash, or voucher transfers, but the development component is more varied. Transfers that are conditional often incorporate explicit devel- opment objectives, such as raising school attendance, expanding voca- tional training or adult schooling, increasing nutritional knowledge, and, quite commonly, building infrastructure through public works programs. A very relevant example is the Productive Safety Net Program in Ethiopia (Box 3.3). This program was an innovative solution to two major problems: (1) the ad hoc, uneven, and unpredictable nature of traditional transfer programs and (2) the widely held view that exces- sive focus on relief was inhibiting sustainable rural development. By combining social protection with public asset building, the Productive Safety Net Program clearly contributes to both relief and longer-term development. In that sense, it is a resilience-oriented program. Related programs in Ethiopia and elsewhere (such as BRAC’s
graduation model in Bangladesh) also focus on helping individuals and households build up business and financial skills as well as con- fidence and a sense of empowerment. These programs are based on the assumption that providing temporary safety from shocks is a key step toward building up assets that provide a more permanent resil- ience to shocks. The Pastoralist Livelihoods Initiative is a quite different exam-
ple of a relief-and-development intervention from Ethiopia (Box 3.3). While productive safety-net programs are well suited to sedentary crop or crop-livestock systems, pastoralists face unique challenges. Like crops, livestock are highly vulnerable to drought. But unlike annual crops, they are a perennial asset, like land.4
This makes the death of
livestock during droughts potentially very costly. In extreme situations, a household may drop out of pastoralism, simply because it cannot rebuild its herd after a drought.
2 3
As examples, see Leach (2008); Hornborg (2009); Davidson (2010); Duit, Galaz, and Eckerberg (2010).
Some of these livelihood strategies may be short-term “negative” coping strategies; others clear- ly involve longer-term maladaptations that cannot be considered simply survival coping behaviors. “Negative” forms of resilience are thus possible and often empirically observed (Sapountzaki 2007).
4
Moreover, the mobility of pastoralist populations makes the range of fixed public works projects, such as the construction of roads and crop infrastructure, more limited, though they are still pos- sible, particularly in more sedentary agro-pastoralist settings.
2013 Global Hunger Index | Chapter 03 | Understanding Resilience for Food and Nutrition Security 23
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66