International Development Organizations Research Articles

Navigating Loan Recovery Process from SMEs: Identifying Critical Challenges for Microfinance Institutions in Tanzania

The purpose of the study is to examine the loan recovery challenges facing Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Tanzania. The study took place at Nuru Financial and Business Services (NFBS), the Self-Microfinance Fund (SMF), and Ameic Microcredit Limited (AMC). These are among the microfinance institutions found in Dar es Salaam. The researchers employed a descriptive research design and used NFBS, SMF, and AML as study cases. The study involved 50 respondents, including credit officers, obtained through simple random sampling. In the data collection, the study used semi-structured questionnaires to gather primary data. Also, the study used secondary data from documents available at NFBS, SMF, and AML. Data were analysed using simple descriptive statistics with frequency, percentages, and mean. The study found that loan recovery was a challenging task and faced several obstacles, such as insufficiency of capital to cover recovery costs, the presence of weak internal controls on loan recovery, higher interest rates, and facing an extraordinary event during the loan recovery process. Others are getting into bitter relations with customers during loan recovery due to the incompetence of staff to address loan recovery processes. Finally, the study recommends the government provide financial support or subsidies to microfinance institutions to cover recovery costs, such as grants, low-interest loans, or financial assistance programmes. Establish and enforce regulatory standards for internal controls within microfinance institutions. Implementing policies to regulate interest rates charged by microfinance institutions to ensure fairness and transparency. Establish a legal framework to handle extraordinary events during the loan recovery process. Microfinance institutions should explore partnerships with international development organisations, impact investors, or donor agencies to secure additional funding for loan recovery efforts. Loan officers should be trained in cost-effective recovery strategies, and SMEs should engage in responsible borrowing practices to minimise the risk of default.

Applying Self-Determination Theory to International Development and Humanitarian Organisations

International development and humanitarian organisations are increasingly focused on transitioning from top-down models of practice to ‘locally-led approaches’ that recognise local epistemologies, capabilities and visions of change. Despite this focus, there remains limited practical guidance to support organisations making this transition. In this article, we aim to suggest ways in which Self-Determination Theory, a well-known theoretical framework in psychology and education, could be applied in the context of development and humanitarian organisations to facilitate transitions to locally-led partnerships and ways of working. We provide an overview of Self-Determination Theory and where it has been used in the development and humanitarian contexts. We propose its feasibility as a framework for transition to locally-led partnerships and approaches in these contexts and suggest specific strategies under a Self-Determination Theory framework that organisations could employ to support both international and local staff members in organisational transitions to locally-led practice.

Relationship, governance, and upgrading opportunities in the Shea value Chain: a descriptive analysis from Northern Ghana

ABSTRACT This study explores the relationships between value chain actors in the shea sector in Northern Ghana, the governance mechanism that prevails, and the upgrading opportunities for upstream actors. The value chain analysis (VCA) framework was the main analytical tool employed for this assessment. Participating actors in the shea global value chain were shea kernel producers, shea butter processors, aggregators, and industrial processors and exporters of shea products. The results showed that, although women shea upstream actors (especially shea kernel producers) interface directly with aggregators, the relationship is weak and restricted to spot buying, and arms-length market governance relationship. Although the upstream actors are enthusiastic to upgrade their products, they are constrained by inadequate access to requisite assets, resources, capabilities, and skills. The shea upstream actors were confined to low value-adding segments and activities of the shea-GVC. Industrial processors and exporters appear reluctant to directly support upstream women processors to upgrade through offering credits, technology transfer and skills enhancement. Lowering barriers to upgrading opportunities in the value chain calls for intervention of the government, and support from international development organizations (NGOs), and midstream and downstream actors. Government must create an enabling policy environment that incentivize downstream actors to build capacities of upstream actors.

The economic impact of terrorism – the efficiency of funds allocated by international development organizations (Gaza Strip Case Study)

Terrorism is a concept that has existed internationally since ancient times, receiving different names from specialists depending on the period in which it was identified, the means and methods used in the activities carried out or the aims pursued by the actions of the members of various organizations.One thing we would like to point out is that as long as there are different points of view, as long as the interests of some of the parties involved in a conflict, including those of an economic nature, are at odds, then the conditions will be created for the development or coagulation of resistance movements, which by their actions will be labelled as terrorist organizations.One of the main terrorist organizations causing immeasurable economic damage, and whose actions are also likely to affect international relations, is Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya – HAMAS, also known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, which since 2006 has taken control of the Gaza Strip using armed force, imposing political and economic separation from the Palestinian Authority.

Assessing the Potential of Digital Tools to Enhance Transparency and Traceability in The Cocoa Value Chain in Ivory Coast

Problem The cocoa industry in Ivory Coast faces significant challenges related to market access, income and transparency despite being the leading global cocoa exporter. Research Aim Therefore, this mixed-methods study aimed to assess digital solutions to address these issues by improving traceability and empowering Ivorian cocoa producers. Research Method Surveys and interviews were conducted with 12 farmers in Lôh Djiboua, 5 buyers, and 3 experts. Results The key findings revealed that 72.7 per cent of farmers were willing to adopt a mobile app to enhance productivity and connect with buyers. However, barriers like limited digital literacy and poor rural infrastructure were identified. Implications and Recommendations The findings in this research would be highly relevant to cocoa cooperatives and associations, cocoa buyers and exporters in Ivory Coast, government agencies and policymakers, international development organizations, and academic researchers. In addition, the recommendations include expanding digital networks through partnerships, implementing training programs for farmers, and ensuring user-friendly app interfaces. Further research should evaluate improvements in the value chain after application implementation. Conclusions Overall, the study demonstrated that tailored mobile-based innovations can benefit cocoa value chain actors by increasing transparency.

A New Approach to Measure Absorptive Capacity and Appropriability: a Case of Study in Emerging Markets

AbstractAbsorptive capacity (AC) and appropriability (KA) are crucial elements in generating competitive advantages and improving innovation performance in different countries and organizations. Moreover, the relationship between AC and KA has not been sufficiently studied, and there is still not a clear understanding of the impact they have on in the generation of rents and value. This research proposes a methodology to analyze AC and KA at a country level using the scientific capabilities of a country as base. We identified the Colombian scientific literature SKL (1680 record) from the Patents Lens database, which have been cited at least once or more per patent (3066 records), and we identified the papers that were cited by this SKL (50,697) in order identify the flows between forward citations (FC) and backward citations (BC) at a country level. We associated BC to the AC acquisition stage, SKL to assimilation, and FC to transformation and exploitation AC phases. The patents were also associated with KA. In addition, we focused on the KA process, analyzing the organizations involved in the SKL and KA process by studying when KA was done by local organizations, by international organizations in the SKL development, or when knowledge was leaked (KS). Finally, we identified when the SKL organization was the corresponding author to analyze whether KA changes in these situations. Our main conclusion was that KA and the last stages of AC of native scientific development rarely happen in Colombia. The primary outcome of this absorption is a KS.

Data Wormholes and Speculative Rice Fields: An Infrastructural Politics of Anticipating Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The 2015 Paris declaration obligated international development organizations to assess the climate compatibility of their projects. For irrigation projects, like those negotiated between the Agence Française de Développement, and the Cambodian government in the early 2020s, calculations of estimated greenhouse gas emissions have become important requirements. But how to estimate emissions from future rice fields and the effects of irrigation infrastructures that do not exist? To address this issue, emissions calculators have been developed as a means to bridge climate science and development knowledge infrastructures, so that data and forms of calculation from climate science can easily enter the world of development. However, by engaging in an infrastructural inversion, we argue that this understanding is flawed. Drawing on a case study of an irrigation project in Cambodia, we show that heterogeneous data concatenations are continuously transformed in the movement across infrastructures until referentiality breaks down. Emission calculators operate as a data wormhole, emitting extremely uncertain numbers that contribute to a problematic and speculative politics of anticipation. In contrast with the dominant politics of anticipation, which depends on futile efforts to neutralize uncertainty, infrastructural inversion makes it possible to envision a decentered politics attentive to distributed agency.

Teaching development practices post‐Covid‐19: Findings from a literature review, a survey and interviews in Aotearoa New Zealand

AbstractThis article details findings from research to re‐design a postgraduate course on development practices in Development Studies in Aotearoa New Zealand, aiming to include the impact of the Covid‐19 pandemic. Reviewing literature, surveying recently graduated students and interviewing senior staff in international development organisations, five topics emerged as forces shaping development practices in a post‐covid‐19 world. Analysis suggests interviewed staff aligned with views in literature. However, comparing views of the current and next generation of development practitioners reveals quite diverging views as to what would be most important for a course on development practices.

Living and learning in the field of international development education

Karen Mundy is a Professor of Education Policy and Leadership at the University of Toronto, and an award-winning scholar in the field of International Education Development. Her career has included sustained engagement and leadership in international development organizations, most notably the Global Partnership for Education and UNESCO. In this piece she reflects on current challenges and opportunities for our field derived from three main autobiographical streams: her life as a scholar; within international development organizations; and her private or personal life.

The importance of accounting for equity in disaster risk models

Societal efforts to understand and mitigate threats posed by hazards are often informed by complex disaster risk models. Despite research demonstrating the disproportionate effects of disasters on vulnerable groups, current risk modeling approaches lack robust methods to account for such equity concerns. Consequently, efforts to develop evidence-based disaster risk management interventions may lack awareness of differential risks in the settings where they are applied. Here, we draw on the relevant literature to develop a typology for characterizing current approaches to incorporating equity into risk modeling. Using this typology, we then evaluated 69 risk assessments conducted by major international development organizations. We found that only ~ 28% of risk models attempt a quantitative evaluation of the differential impacts of disasters and climate change. We then used an equity-sensitive approach to reconstruct a recent risk assessment and show that important elements are missed when equity is excluded in disaster risk modeling.

How are accountability and organisational learning related? A study of German bilateral development cooperation

We analyse qualitative data collected from employees at Germany’s two main international development organisations, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) Development Bank, to study how upward accountability and organisational learning interact in the world’s second largest foreign aid system. Goffman’s ‘staging’ heuristic is applied to unpack social practices in these two organisations. We find that employees navigate two separate domains, a frontstage and a backstage. They consider the federal bureaucracy an audience expecting a coherent storyline despite the messy realities of foreign aid. In response, they engage in impression management on a frontstage while shielding their backstages from scrutiny to maximise autonomy. As a result, organisational learning at GIZ and KfW in Goffman’s terms focuses on collective efficacy at satisfying accountability expectations through staged performances. We relate these insights to the hierarchical structure of Germany’s foreign aid system, the role of organisational interests and prevailing professional norms.

Natural resource rents and access to finance

Broadening access to finance is among the top priorities for governments and international development organizations worldwide. This study examines the impact of natural resource rents on access to finance in financial institutions and financial markets across 109 countries from 1996 to 2020. The results of dynamic two-step system generalized method of moments estimation demonstrate that total natural resource rents hinder access to finance in financial institutions and markets, confirming the natural resource curse hypothesis. Specifically, rents from oil, coal, minerals, and forests negatively affect access to finance in financial institutions and markets, while gas rent has surprisingly a positive effect on both. Furthermore, institutional quality significantly promotes access to finance in financial institutions and markets. All aspects of institutional quality (control of corruption, government effectiveness, political stability, regulatory quality, rule of law, and voice and accountability) positively affect access to finance except regulatory quality, which has an insignificant effect on access to finance in financial institutions. Moreover, our findings show that institutional quality significantly moderates the effect of natural resource rents on access to finance, specifically, it varies depending on whether the institutions are strong or weak, being positive in the former case and negative in the latter. The study conducts several robustness tests using additional controls, alternative measures of financial access, and sample sensitivity analysis, all of which confirm the findings. Finally, we suggest policy implications for relevant stakeholders.

The African origin of public policy, programme and project monitoring and evaluation (M&E) practices

The literature has robust contestation about the origin of public policy, programme and project monitoring and evaluation (M&E). Cloete (2016) argues that public policy, programme and project M&E originated in Europe and America and was introduced in Africa by colonisers who divided the African continent among themselves in the early 1880s. Cloete (2016) does not explain why there was no public policy, programme or project M&E in Africa or any other non-western part of the world before the arrival of western colonisers. Mouton (2010) also argues that M&E was introduced in Africa by international development organisations and financial organisations in the 1980s. According to Mouton (2010), these western development organisations and financial institutions introduced M&E to the African continent as a condition for accessing foreign aid and as a funding requirement for the projects these institutions were funding. Neither Mouton (2010) nor Cloete (2016) accounts for ample literature which demonstrates that M&E practices existed in Africa (and in China) thousands of years before the arrival of the international development organisation and international financial organisations in these parts of the world. This paper uses the Secondary Data Analysis (Archival Study) approach to provide a systematic and chronological analysis of the available literature to trace the genesis of public policy, programme and project M&E as a practice. The findings in this paper indicate that M&E could potentially have become a practice in African countries such as Egypt and Asian countries such as China long before it was a practice in the U.S. and European countries. However, evidence suggests that academics and practitioners in the U.S. and European countries could have compiled the first recorded theoretical academic content about M&E models and approaches currently being used to train people who want to take up a career or profession in M&E.

Pathways of Global Cultural Diffusion: Mass Media and People’s Moral Declarations about Men’s Violence against Women

Current theories of global cultural diffusion outline abstract mechanisms through which cultural scripts spread across the world. To reveal how scripts reach individuals, one must identify the specific pathways of diffusion. I examine the case of how scripts about gender relations and violence are diffused through mass media to people in Malawi. Using a mixed-methods approach, I find that international development organizations work with Malawian journalists to produce an array of content denouncing the practice of men abusing women. Entertainment media companies, however, disseminate content portraying patriarchal gender stereotypes. I show that mass media content critical of men’s violence of women is positively associated with people’s stated rejection of this practice, whereas individuals’ exposure to content mixed with patriarchal scripts is not. Notably, a one-standard-deviation increase in the number of newspaper articles critically covering men’s abuse toward women in the 30 days leading up to a person’s unique survey interview date is associated with a 3.2 (women) or 2.1 (men) percentage-point increase in the probability of respondents stating that they condemn such violence. Broadly, the results outline a multifaceted portrait of global cultural diffusion, with liberal and patriarchal scripts simultaneously reaching individual people.

Taliban's war on educating girls and women must end now: A call for global actions

The Taliban's decision to ban women's and girl's education in Afghanistan paints a bleak picture of the future of Afghan women [1]. It is a direct violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which states that everyone has the right to education [2]. Deprivation of education is known to negatively affect other human rights, such as the rights to health and freedom. We, as health journal editors from across six continents, call for urgent international actions to restore justice and protect human rights in Afghanistan. The Taliban's takeover in August 2021 added massive pressure to the already overwhelmed health system of Afghanistan [3]. Afghan women and girls have been disproportionately affected, as the Taliban adhere to an ultra-fundamentalist interpretation of Islam that severely restricts women's freedom of movement and access to healthcare, education, and employment. Although the Taliban have repeatedly claimed that they would protect the rights of girls and women, they have in fact done the opposite. Some of their most drastic restrictions have been around education. In March 2022, the Taliban banned girls from returning to secondary schools [5]. This was followed by another decision in December 2022 to indefinitely ban women and girls from pursuing higher education and work [1]. Years of progress were reversed overnight, with Afghanistan once again becoming the only country in the world that actively prevents girls from receiving an education. The education crisis has had a huge impact on the social determinants of health across the country, leading to devastating health outcomes for Afghan women [4]. Even before the ban on education, Afghanistan's health indicators had already been rapidly deteriorating since the Taliban takeover. A United Nations Women survey reported that in 2022, only 10% of women could cover their basic health needs, compared to 23% of men [5]. This is a major setback compared to the 90% coverage of basic health services that the Afghan population had just prior to the takeover [6]. Another survey reported staff shortages, particularly because the Taliban only allow women to be attended by female healthcare workers. The maternal mortality rate, after decades of significant reductions, is projected to be on the rise [7]. The deprivation of education and the increasing restrictions that act to keep women confined to their homes impact every aspect of their well-being, including mental and physical health, food insecurity, immunization status, and access to medical care [5-9]. Prior to and during the first year of the Taliban's regime, school-based public health interventions had been vital for reaching Afghan girls. For instance, the United Nations reported that between August 2021 and 2022, 272,386 adolescent girls received iron and folic acid supplementation in schools [10]. Schools had also provided safe spaces for Afghan women. They reduced the risk of exploitation, abuse, and child and forced marriage [10, 11]. In 2016, Afghan government data reported that girls deprived of education had their risk of entering child marriage increased threefold compared to girls who completed at least secondary education [11]. As school closures become more rampant, Afghan women become deprived of their right to health and freedom from violence. The education ban is also denying them and the whole nation of better socioeconomic conditions, which are inextricably linked to improving national health status. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimated that in the last 12 months, the ban cost Afghanistan at least US$500 million [10]. Furthermore, the ban also cuts the access of female healthcare students to education, exacerbating the shortage of female healthcare workers [7, 11]. This is detrimental to the health status of women, who are now unable to seek care from both male healthcare workers and the ever decreasing number of female health workers. The grim reality that is unfolding in Afghanistan has a striking resemblance with the reality of the Taliban's first rule in the 1990s, which also banned girls’ education. At that time, persistent conflicts, deprivation of education, and increasing poverty rates led to the collapse of Afghanistan's health system and provided almost no access to health services for women. This was partly due to the severe international sanctions imposed on the Taliban regime. The situation improved during the decades of post-Taliban rule, which saw significant international support through financial aid and other development support [12]. This highlights the importance of international and collective actions. Protecting human rights and improving living conditions should be conducted at the global level due to its huge impact and moral reasons-to foster long lasting peace, humans must not leave others behind. Actions against the Afghan crisis, while not directly affecting other countries, are a testament to the belief that human rights should be universal, irrespective of one's gender, belief, ethnicity, or nationality. As history repeats itself with the resurgence of the Taliban regime, the international community is once again imposing sanctions on the Taliban. Although these efforts may be successful at pressuring the Taliban government, their severe impact on the ordinary civilians, including women, should also be considered. Coupled with the Taliban's active deprivation of women's rights, sanction-related poverty has worsened women's living conditions. In addition, the complexity of operating humanitarian efforts amidst international sanctions continues to limit access to basic services [13]. Balancing these political and humanitarian efforts should be the priority of the international community. Now more than ever, the world has become more connected. This calls for urgent actions and increased pressure from the international community to end the Taliban's restrictions on the right of Afghan women and girls to quality education. Recognition, aid, and legitimization of the Taliban by the international community should be hinged upon visible proof of inclusivity, respect for human rights, and people-centered governance, beginning with girls being able to access equitable and quality education across all levels. There is a need for dialogue with the Taliban on the importance of women and girls education for national growth and socioeconomic development, as well as strong condemnation of the current school ban. This engagement is best led by Islamic scholars, influential personalities, and religious leaders, who are well poised to advocate for the prioritization of equal and quality education in the Islamic context. Although the current ban continues, international development organizations in Afghanistan should explore and provide alternative educational support to girls, which bring them at pace with the boys in school [14]. Ending the Taliban's war against women, such as the education ban, requires global actions. Everyone, including Afghan women, is entitled to the protection of their basic needs and rights. The actions of the global community will not only affect the current generation but also Afghan generations to come. All authors are editorial board members of the journal. They were excluded and blinded from all stages of the peer review of this manuscript. There is no funding for the development of this paper. There is no need for ethical approval. No database or primary data was used in writing the paper.

HPV Vaccination and Cervical Cancer Screening Policies and Practices in 18 Countries, Territories and Entities across Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

To assess readiness to achieve the WHO Global Strategy targets for HPV vaccination and cervical screening and to guide capacity building, the current status of these services in 18 Eastern European and Central Asian countries, territories and entities (CTEs) was evaluated. In order to assess the current status of HPV vaccination and cervical cancer screening in these 18 CTEs, a 30 question survey tool was developed, covering: national policies, strategies and plans for cervical cancer prevention; status of cancer registration; status of HPV vaccination; and current practices for cervical cancer screening and treatment of precancerous lesions. As cervical cancer prevention comes within the mandate of the United Nations Fund for Population Development (UNFPA), the UNFPA offices in the 18 CTEs have regular contact with national experts who are directly involved in cervical cancer prevention actions and are well placed to provide the data required for this survey. Working through the UNFPA offices, the questionnaires were sent to these national experts in April 2021, with data collected from April to July 2021. All CTEs returned completed questionnaires. Only Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, North Macedonia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have implemented national HPV vaccination programmes, with only the last 2 of these reaching the WHO target of 90% of girls fully vaccinated by age 15, while rates in the other 4 range from 8%-40%. Cervical screening is available in all CTEs but only Belarus and Turkmenistan have reached the WHO target of 70% of women screened once by age 35 and again by age 45, while rates elsewhere range from 2%-66%. Only Albania and Turkey follow the WHO recommendation to use a high-performance screening test, while the majority use cervical cytology as the main screening test and Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan use visual inspection. No CTEs currently operate systems to coordinate, monitor and quality assure (QA) the entire cervical screening process. Cervical cancer prevention services in this region are very limited. Achieving the WHO Global Strategy targets by 2030 will require substantial investments in capacity building by international development organisations.

Overcoming barriers to research use in international development organisations: learning from an action research project

ABSTRACT Development policymakers and practitioners face a range of challenges to using research. This paper draws on an action research project that aimed to investigate the individual and organisational drivers that contribute to, or inhibit, greater use of research in international development organisations, and test strategies to shift them. We convened a group of practitioners and researchers from 12 diverse international development organisations to undertake action research projects within their own organisations. Analysis of the portfolio of action research projects identified five organisational factors which are the basis for improving research use and 15 practical strategies for implementing organisational change. Taken together, these organisational factors and strategies can assist in improving the integration of research in international development organisations and support more evidence-based policy, programming, and advocacy.

Determinants of international development investments in renewable energy in developing countries

International development organizations and financial institutions provide financing for renewable energy expansion in developing countries. The eligibility for and success of these investments depend to a great extent on the regulatory, economic and sociopolitical environment in the recipient countries. This research explores what role these characteristics of developing countries play in attracting investments from international development financing sources. The study uses panel data from 2010 to 2017 for 86 developing countries from different regions of the world. It also explores the heterogeneity of the drivers in countries of different levels of economic development. The study finds that the regulatory support for renewable energy plays a significant role, as do FITs, tendering and public investments. Lack of access to electricity or clean cooking energy, or low levels of renewables in the energy composition do not attract development funds. High energy dependence however has a positive impact. Policy instruments and country characteristics affect the inflows of loans and grants differently. The findings have implications for policy makers in both the donor and recipient countries, regarding how development funds can be channeled more effectively to attain SDG 7 and climate goals in the developing countries.

Contested definitions of digital agri-food system transformation: A webpage and network analysis

This article explores how digital agri-food system transformations are framed and by whom. To answer these questions, we searched for webpages linked to Twitter and by Google that describe the role of emerging digital technologies in agri-food systems. From these, we characterize three framings of transformation. The first framing proposes that digital tools make farms optimally productive. A second framing emphasizes inequities in access to digital tools and increased farmer participation in tech development. A third framing highlights how technology creates more traceable agri-food systems. We then conducted a social network analysis of webpage authors, finding three network clusters. The largest centres on intergovernmental and international development organizations that typically promote the first and third framings. The second framing is mostly promoted by academic and civil society actors and was least common across webpages, suggesting that digital agriculture trajectories may overlook farmer autonomy and agency. Framings vary in the degree of transformation they promote and their consideration of smaller-scale farms’ needs. We suggest that digital agri-food system transformation efforts are more diverse than typically described in the literature. We recommend public and private actors work with academics and civil society organizations to enhance farmer inclusion in designing novel transformative approaches.

Beyond Expectations of Resilience: Towards a Language of Care

AbstractThis article draws from hundreds of interviews and conversations with survivors of wars and violence in different contexts to show the limits of resilience. I bring together stories from my experiences talking with survivors across many countries—including Palestine, South Africa, Northern Ireland, Qatar, Jordan, and the United Kingdom. Through employing ethnographic and autoethnographic methods, I argue that resilience expectations may impose supernatural coping mechanisms on communities struggling with adversities, romanticize them as exemplary in enduring injustices, obscure their humanity, and normalize (structural) violence they continue to experience or reduce its severity. I question who benefits from an overemphasis on and financing of resilience, especially within (international) development organizations. The communities I spoke with all contend that resilience is not just a useless word but also a discourse, a way of thinking, and a policy implemented during difficulties. They emphasize that the cheap (re)production of them as extraordinary people, who are expected to endure suffering, is violent because it places the onus on them to be resilient on issues beyond their control while, often, ignoring layers of (structural) violence and subsequent traumas they face. As an alternative discourse to resilience, I propose a collective and caring approach that deals with root causes of violence instead of ignoring them.