SEI at the “Resilience Academy”: Connecting communities of expertise to address livelihood resilience

In many vulnerable areas of the world, extreme weather events such as catastrophic floods and extended droughts threaten lives and livelihoods. These climate stresses damage productivity and settlements. Research and policy has tried to address the concerns of people whose livelihood systems and settlements are threatened or damaged by overwhelming climate extremes. The concept of resilience – the capacity to absorb shock or the return of the functions of an individual, household, community or ecosystem to previous conditions, with as little damage and disruption as possible following shocks and stresses – is increasingly informing these efforts.

The concept of resilience is increasingly being used to bring together scholars interested in addressing a range of shocks and stresses, including food security, conflict and disasters. The advantage of the resilience framework lies in its ability to go beyond linear thinking, and look instead at notions of societal and environmental tipping points, and alternative states. It also helps to broaden thinking to accept flexibility, and anticipatory longer-term perspectives for societal transformations.

What does resilience mean for people whose prospects include mounting stress on rural livelihoods, environmental displacement and/or migration to a slum in a Southern megacity? What are the development prospects for those whose livelihoods are most vulnerable? What sources of resilience are available to the landless and mobile poor?

The Resilience Academy 2014, held in Lake Chiemsee near Munich, Germany from 17 to 23 August, brought together more than 30 researchers, policy-makers and other stakeholders to address these questions under the theme of “livelihoods amidst forced and managed transitions”. The 2014 Academy debated a key issue: With significant transitions in livelihood systems arising from global change, how can livelihood resilience help us identify the problems and provide tools for transformation?

“The Academy aims to maximize the impact of scientific contributions, and use these to carry forward policy recommendations,” said David Wrathall, associate academic officer at UNU-EHS for Gibika (Livelihoods), a science-to-action project on social resilience in Bangladesh, in collaboration International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), supported by the Munich Re Foundation.

SEI’s Frank Thomalla presented at the Academy on the “SEI Initiative on Risk, Vulnerability and Resilience to Natural Hazards”. This new SEI-wide initiative focuses on producing high-quality research that integrates diverse research areas and sectors relevant to building disaster resilience, including natural resource management, development, health, poverty reduction, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. SEI’s efforts link well to the theme of the Academy’s work and are timely in helping to inform the post-2015 arrangements for disaster risk reduction, climate change, and sustainable development.

The papers and policy briefs produced in the Academy aim at influencing big policy milestones in the area of Climate Change Adaptation, Disaster Risk Reduction, Humanitarian Response and Development in 2015 and beyond. Case studies at the 2014 Academy in Munich ranged from Afghanistan and Bangladesh to Columbia Uganda and New Zealand and addressed a range of issues and questions. These included:

• gender mainstreaming in climate change resilience;
• reducing vulnerabilities of rural communities through shared decision-making, participation, engagement and capacity building in the development of livelihoods strategies that reflect community aspirations, and;
• building livelihood resilience for small and marginal farmers; Lessons on livelihood resilience for climate change adaptation from small island communities.

Koko Warner of the United Nations University, one of the lead organisers of the Academy said that “Taking a livelihoods perspective helps to make resilience thinking stronger by emphasising human needs and their agency”. There is a crucial need to understand how values and ideologies translate into activities and institutions that characterize the political economy of climate change resilience.

Issues such as empowerment and human rights, and livelihood systems in the context of larger transformational changes become important to be integrated into policy advice. In sum, the governance aspects of resilience are crucial: what type of resilience, and for whom? Who decides this, and on the basis of what value systems?

The “Resilience Academy” is an annual event to serve as a platform for different communities of expertise that includes early phase practitioners, academics, and policy analysts to examine livelihood resilience in the face of local and regional realities, and co-create concepts to foster resilience. The first Resilience Academy took place in Savar, Bangladesh in 2013 and explored livelihood resilience amidst global transitions. It brought together 25 researchers and practitioners from 15 countries as well as field facilitators from Bangladesh and two senior experts.

The SEI-wide Initiative on Risk, Vulnerability and Resilience to Natural Hazards focuses on integrated research for building resilience to disaster risks. It has a dedicated team, financial support through core funding, and a clearly articulated program strategy. It aims to build on SEI’s past efforts in risk, vulnerability, resilience, and livelihoods research. The goal is to produce high-quality research that integrates diverse research areas and sectors relevant to disaster resilience, including natural resource management, development, health, poverty reduction, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.

Read more

UNU-EHS: Gibika (Livelihoods) and Resilience Academy

2014 Resilience Academy Bulletin

Loss and Damage in Vulnerable Countries Initiative

SEI Initiative on Risk, Vulnerability and Resilience to Natural Hazards