Resilience from the ground up: how are local resilience perceptions and global frameworks aligned?

Emilie Beauchamp,John Mcpeak,Susannah Fisher,Jennifer Abdella,Mamadou Touré,Hannah Patnaik,Daouda Cissé,Aly Bocoum,Yacouba Deme,Momath Ndao,Papa Koulibaly,Bara Gueye

doi:10.1111/disa.12342

Abstract

Numerous resilience measurement frameworks for climate programmes have emerged over the past decade to operationalise the concept and aggregate results within and between programmes. Proxies of resilience, including subjective measures using perception data, have been proposed to measure resilience, but there is limited evidence on their validity and use for policy and practice. This article draws on research on the Decentralising Climate Funds project of the Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters programme, which supports communities in Mali and Senegal to improve climate resilience through locally controlled adaptation funds. It explores attributes of resilience from this bottom‐up perspective to assess its predictors and alignment with food security, as a proxy of well‐being. We find different patterns when comparing resilience and the well‐being proxy, illustrating that the interplay between the two is still unclear. Results also point to the importance of contextualising resilience, raising implications for aggregating results.

Highlights

With the increase in climate shocks and rising awareness of the impacts of climate change, the concept of resilience has become increasingly prominent across academia, policy and practice in environmental and social spheres (Eakin et al, 2014)
We empirically explore the relationship between perceptions of resilience; observable socioeconomic variables thought to contribute to resilience; and food security as a related well-being variable commonly used in the Sahelien context
Improved resilience means that an individual is better able to maintain or improve their well-being despite being exposed to shocks and stresses (DFID, 2014)

Summary

Introduction

With the increase in climate shocks and rising awareness of the impacts of climate change, the concept of resilience has become increasingly prominent across academia, policy and practice in environmental and social spheres (Eakin et al, 2014). Donor agencies and international climate funds have designed a range of global frameworks and indicators to standardise their use of the term ‘climate resilience’, to measure impact and to aggregate results at a national and international level (Bours et al, 2015) Within these frameworks, resilience is often framed normatively as a context-specific and quantifiable outcome (such as changes in adaptive coping capacities) that is conceptually linked to improved development and well-being impactrelated variables, such as food security or poverty reduction (Marshall et al, 2010; Bennett and Dearden, 2014; Constas et al, 2014; Béné et al, 2015). For smallholder and subsistence farmers in variable environments, climate impacts are often first felt through production losses that affect household food security and nutrition through direct losses of food stocks/harvests or reduced income (FAO, 2013).

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