STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Building resilience to the negative consequences of shocks — whether related to climate, conflict, economic, or factors — can limit their negative consequences on people, communities, and societies.
- Projects can contribute to building resilience through one or more pathways related to increasing economic capacity, enhancing institutional capacity, or bolstering social cohesion.
- The paper provides a practical conceptual framework for understanding and measuring resilience in Community and Local Development (CLD) projects.
Summary
The concept of resilience has been used in a variety of ways with increasing focus at the World Bank. Yet resilience is defined and understood in different ways, leading to sometimes unclear and unsystematic operational approaches. Resilience is the ability, capacity and flexibility to prepare for, cope with, recover from, and adapt to shocks and future challenges. However, it is not always clear who projects are aiming to build the resilience of, to what shocks and future challenges, and how projects plan to do this. As a result, there are not always clear theories of change in place linking diagnosis of the problem, to the activities to be undertaken, to desired outcomes. As a result, there is little consensus on how resilience should be measured in results frameworks.
The paper aims to be a short primer of task teams, simplifying frameworks around resilience to help teams design, monitor, and evaluate their work.
The paper A Framework for Understanding and Measuring Resilience presents a simple framework for what SSI means when it uses the term resilience in CLD projects. It provides examples of how to measure resilience when working at the community level. Following are the key highlights of the paper.
Pathways to Resilience
The conceptual framework is focused on areas in which SSI and CLD work can build resilience. Resilient actors have access to three sets of resources:
Economic Resources:
They have access to and can effectively manage a diverse array of resources, which are crucial for supporting stability and recovery during times of stress. SSI can contribute to resilience by increasing the economic capacity of households and communities.
Institutions:
The organizational structures and processes within which resilient actors operate are robust and flexible. This enables them to make informed decisions, coordinate actions efficiently, and maintain functionality when facing adverse conditions. SSI can contribute to resilience by building the functioning and capacity of formal and informal institutions at multiple levels.
Social Cohesion:
Relations are strong enough to allow different people and groups, including the state, to work collectively to address problems. SSI can contribute to resilience by strengthening social cohesion and collective action capacity.
Case Studies
FLLoCA - Resilience Data to Target Assistance
Resources
Examples of SSI Projects on Resilience