16 RESILIENCE PROGRAMMING AMONG NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS
with the use of timely and flexible funding mechanisms for emergencies can strengthen resilience of smallholder farm- ers to food and nutrition shocks (von Grebmer et al. 2013). Given the precarious status of Haiti as “the country most at risk from climate change” (von Grebmer et al. 2013, 34), use of a resilience approach adds great value to the design of long-term programming. Tis is especially so in light of the humanitarian mentality perhaps inadvertently promulgated by well-meaning NGOs in response to the 2010 earthquake that has leſt Haiti mostly dependent on foreign aid (von Grebmer et al. 2013). Smallholder farmers in Haiti’s North-West Depart-
ment face a number of structural causes of vulnerability: inadequate infrastructure, inappropriate technologies, and markets that are difficult to access. Welthungerhilfe used a holistic approach focusing on watershed protection, ensur- ing market access to remote areas, providing irrigation and water supply systems, and food- or cash-for-work programs to protect against periodic food and nutrition shocks by improving the absorptive and adaptive capacities of com- munities to anticipate and minimize risks and to cope with and recover from natural disasters. Welthungerhilfe’s programming focused on improving
availability of and access to food, with less emphasis on nutrition-related interventions per se. Te program aimed to enhance community absorptive capacity to mitigate the risks of and recover from food and nutrition insecurity resulting from natural disasters through interventions that protected watersheds and crop production areas, developed rural roads connecting to remote markets, and provided ac- cess to irrigation and safe household drinking water systems. Timely food- or cash-for-work programs during periodic emergencies were designed to help households avoid resorting to negative coping strategies (for example, sale of assets, use of destructive practices that further degrade the environment), allowing for quicker recovery times aſter a disaster. Te program implemented soil conservation tech- niques and diversification of crop production to contribute to household and community capacity to adapt to a chang- ing and unpredictable risk landscape. In order to enhance transformative capacity, the pro-
gram facilitated community-based commitees (for example, water management) as a way to collectively mitigate and manage future risk, and it strengthened collaboration
between local government and national ministries. Te program was aligned with national policies on agriculture, rural development, drinking water and hygiene, food secu- rity, environmental protection, and DRR to help ensure an enabling environment that would facilitate rather than limit community resilience for smallholder farmers in the region.
Catholic Relief Services
CRS’s approach to resilience programming relies heavily on comprehensive and participatory analysis of vulner- ability to risks and shocks, including analysis sensitive to both time and scale (household, community, district, national). A comprehensive (multihazard, multisector) analysis is required for effective problem analysis, which allows for developing a theory of change and identifying appropriate leverage points in order to effect the desired change(s). CRS’s strategy for building resilience capacity comprises elements of emergency response, DRR, climate change adaptation, and livelihoods approaches to help vulnerable households and communities plan for and cope with shocks. Tis integrated approach is intended to allow households and communities to identify risks and prepare for potential shocks ahead of time, thereby reduc- ing the risk from and impact of future shocks, as well as reducing the recovery time aſter a shock. CRS promotes community-managed disaster risk reduc-
tion (CM-DRR) to build the absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities of communities to identify poten- tial shocks, assess community vulnerability to these shocks, design and implement risk reduction strategies to mitigate and deal with such shocks, and utilize lessons learned to im- prove future CM-DRR activities. CRS’s approach seeks to strengthen absorptive capacity by helping communities in preparing for and mitigating the impact of shocks through early warning systems and improved access to information (such as climate or marketing information). Key interven- tions—ones that promote risk-reducing livelihoods and income diversification, climate change adaptation (for example, tree planting, drought-resistant crop varieties and livestock breeds), and utilization of assets and services (such as those for health, education, nutrition, water, and sanitation)—contribute to community capacity to adapt to future shocks and stresses. CM-DRR aims to facilitate mobilization of local resources and linkages to national
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