Resilience Of Local Communities Research Articles

An inquest into the resource mobilization and utilization capacity of local leaders for community resilience to agriculture-threatening droughts and floods

The main objective of the study was to analyze the relationship between resource mobilization and utilization capacity of local leaders and community resilience to droughts and floods in Lower Muzarabani District of the Zambezi Valley in Zimbabwe. Continual exposure to the hydro-climatic disasters of droughts and floods in Lower Muzarabani has accelerated the vulnerability of poor rural communities, plunging them deeper into poverty and preventing them from taking advantage of economic opportunities. With Lower Muzarabani faced with increasing magnitude, frequency and intensity of droughts and floods, the need for concerted efforts towards building disaster-resilient communities can never be overemphasized. The Conjoint Community Resilience Assessment Model (CCRAM) Household Questionnaire was used to collect data in face-to-face interviews among the sampled households. in Lower Muzarabani. The original CCRAM Model structure, consisting of 5 disaster-resilience factors (Leadership, Collective Efficacy, Preparedness, Place Attachment, and Social Trust) and 28 items, was used as the basis for the survey. The multi-stage sampling method was used in selecting the 200 households for the survey. The major finding obtained with the use of the Pearson Bivariate Correlation Analysis and Linear Regression Analysis was that the efficiency and effectiveness of resource mobilization and utilization activities (represented in the CCRAM model by the preparedness factor) significantly and positively influence community resilience to the hydro-climatic disasters of droughts and floods in Lower Muzarabani.

Pets are family, keep them safe: a review of emergency animal management in remote First Nations communities

Planning for and considering animals is a growing area within emergency and disaster planning. As people adapt to the changing risks of disaster events that are increasing in magnitude and frequency, communities, particularly those in regional and remote areas of Australia, face challenges that are very different from other more populated areas. These communities are often home to pets, which pose unique challenges during evacuation, response and recovery phases of emergency management. Australian state and territory government emergency management plans give varied considerations to animal management. In the Northern Territory, the Territory Emergency Plan (Northern Territory Government 2022) serves as a base for animal management in disasters. However, significant reform is required to fill gaps in considerations of animals in remote communities, especially First Nations communities, given the strong socio-cultural connections within family structures and contributions to wellbeing under First Nations health worldviews and the human-animal bond. Such reform requires consultation and collaboration with First Nations Australians to promote ‘right-way’ science, build local capacity and support community resilience. Considerations of the interplay between people and their pets in disaster planning, response and recovery contributes to ongoing advances in the ‘One Health’ and ‘One Welfare’ paradigms.

Using Q-methodology to discover disaster resilience perspectives from local residents

Finding ways to increase local community resilience is important, therefore, this study explores how to use individual disaster resilience indicators and provides new ways to quantify them. Specifically, Q-methodology is used as a combined approach of qualitative and quantitative techniques to examine the shared perspectives among the residents in the Dove Springs community of Austin, Texas. To maintain adaptability and eliminate repetition and ambiguity, the initially retrieved set of 95 indicators was reduced down to 45 through two cycles of revision with subject matter experts. A total of 41 respondents were engaged in our study, and they prioritized the indicators based on their understanding of community well-being. Participants also identified their perspective of the two most important and unimportant statements. As a result, four types of perspectives were identified as informing the status of resilience: housing and food security, education and employment, equity, and disaster preparedness. Subsequently, we proposed a weighted quantification strategy to derive a single resilience value within a hierarchy from indicator level through category level. The findings and suggestions from our mixed-method study lay the groundwork for a better quantitative assessment of disaster resilience in a local context that can be beneficial for decision-making.

Resilience Capability of Indigenous People Affected by Small-Scale Gold Mining Activities: A Prevention Approach

This research addresses three main review points related to the harmful practices of artisanal and small-scale gold mining and the appropriateness of prevention approaches to resilience for local residents’ environments. First, the focus is on cases of illegal mining exploitation in North Rarowatu and Lantari Jaya, with emphasis on the aspects of disaster risk management and prevention approaches in construction areas. Second, focus is given to the abundance of gold grains in the mining area, which attracts the author to utilize a dynamic system approach to explore whether a progressive restructuring exists for avoiding casualties in the mining area. Third, the precautionary accuracy of the security forces and the government are given focus to emphasize the prohibition of mercury absorption as a mining method. This research utilizes a system dynamics methodology to investigate the review of preventive approaches for maintaining the resilience of local communities and the determinants of small-scale gold mining activities by considering other empirical testing models. This study finds that a 30–50% increase in gold production significantly results in hydrological pollution due to mercury content, increased worker deaths, and unending damage to resident ecosystems, with minimal preventive capabilities in the pre-illegal artisanal and small-scale gold mining period. Moreover, this study offers an input and output prevention approach to controlling the number of illegal gold miners while protecting the environmental resilience of local residents.

Arranged cohabitation among Chinese Muslims

While modern family-related ideas and behaviors have become more widely accepted in contemporary China, Chinese Muslim minorities continue to hold on to traditional religious practices. Surprisingly, data from our survey conducted in Gansu province in China's northwestern borderlands reveal that Muslims of the Hui and Dongxiang ethnicities reported much higher rates of cohabitation experience than the secular majority Han. Based on follow-up qualitative interviews, we found the answer to lie in the interplay between the highly interventionist Chinese state and the robust cultural resilience of local Islamic communities. While the state maintains a high minimum legal age of marriage, the early marriage norm remains strong in Chinese Muslim communities, where religion constitutes an alternative and often more powerful source of legitimacy-at least in the private sphere of life. Using the 2000 census data, we further show that women in almost all 10 Muslim ethnic groups have higher percentages of underage births and premarital births than Han women, both nationally and in the northwest where most Chinese Muslims live. As the once-outlawed behavior of cohabitation became more socially acceptable during the reform and opening-up era, young Muslim Chinese often found themselves in "arranged cohabitations" as de facto marriages formed at younger-than-legal ages. In doing so, Chinese Muslim communities have reinvented the meaning of cohabitation. Rather than liberal intimate relationship based on individual autonomy, cohabitation has served as a coping strategy by which Islamic patriarchs circumvent the Chinese state's aggressive regulations aimed at "modernizing" the Muslim family.

COVID-19 and local community resilience in the Westfjords of Iceland

ABSTRACT Remote Arctic communities have often been depicted as being particularly vulnerable to the challenges of disasters, with their location and lack of infrastructure exacerbating risk. This study explores the characteristics of local resilience in the Arctic using the case study of the communities of the north-western Westfjords. A total of 42 semi-structured interviews were carried out with various community members, seeking to uncover the features of inbuilt resilience that contribute to successes and vulnerabilities. These were transcribed, coded, and categorised in relation to an integrated framework for assessing community resilience in disaster management, which groups topics via the themes of environmental, social, governance, economic, and infrastructure. All themes played a role in the success of local coping strategies, with easy access to the natural environment central to physical and mental well-being. Despite this, vulnerabilities of the community were evident, including insufficient local healthcare workers during a severe COVID-19 outbreak in a care home, the absence of a local quarantine hotel, and insufficient information in foreign languages for non-natives of Iceland. The general trend of following rules and expert advice was demonstrative of strong social capital, with locals trusting those in charge, nationally and locally, to manage the pandemic.

Socio-Economic Dynamics: Traditional Mining and Community Resilience in South Kalimantan

Indonesia has abundant natural resources, including valuable diamonds, greatly impacting its mining industry, economy, and other environmental and societal sectors. This research, conducted in Sungai Tiung Village, Cempaka Sub-district, Banjarbaru City, South Kalimantan Province, Indonesia, explores how the use of natural resources, economic activities, and community resilience are interconnected by examining the enduring traditional mining practices in South Kalimantan, focusing specifically on diamond panning. Using qualitative research methods, this research collected comprehensive data through observations, interviews, and documentation involving key stakeholders such as miners, local communities, and government representatives. The analysis, which incorporates triangulation and expanded observations, reveals three key aspects of traditional mining patterns: the equipment used, the complexities of the work system, and how mining outcomes are shared. The findings highlight the resilience embedded in the traditional mining practices of diamond prospectors in South Kalimantan, showing how these practices influence work methods and reflect traditional community life, characterized by a cooperative and tolerant approach. As a result, this research deepens our understanding of diamond panning. It provides valuable insights into the relationship between traditional practices and the resilience of local communities on a broader scale.

Community flood resilience assessment of Saadi neighborhood, Shiraz, Iran

Flash floods have recently become a recurrent phenomenon with devastating impacts on different cities, particularly vulnerable communities in Iran. Community resilience is a relatively recent approach to resilience, increasingly used in the natural hazards and climate change literature. This study aims to assess the community resilience of a flood-prone district, the Saadi neighborhood, in Shiraz, Iran. Based on an extensive literature review, an indicator-based framework was outlined to measure community resilience to flash floods using five dimensions: social, community capital, economic, institutional, and infrastructural and housing resilience. The primary data on community flood resilience assessment was collected through a survey using questionnaires. Using simple random sampling, 374 individuals from the residents of the study area were selected. The data were ranked and analyzed through qualification methods, descriptive statistics and expert panel weighting system. The overall composite community resilience and the community resilience indices’ scores were .56 out of 1 for the selected community, indicating a moderate level of resilience. The findings showed that institutional and infrastructure/housing conditions had a limited impact on community resilience. However, social trust and community capital were crucial for aiding the community’s rapid recovery from a flood disaster and preparing for future floods. Policymakers and resilience planners, thus, should focus on the lessons that can be learnt from the past floods, particularly in terms of infrastructure and institutional resilience, as these have a significant impact on the overall resilience of local communities.

Resilience analysis of the local communities from a political economy perspective in Zanjan, Iran

Local community resilience has been a solution to reduce human and natural origin damages for several decades in global studies. Various studies have addressed different aspects of resilience. However, using the results of this research to create local community resilience has always faced limitations. In fact, the neglected role of political economy in these studies has caused the application of policies and strategies resulting from these studies to face challenge to create local communities’ resilience. Therefore, the aim of this research is to evaluate how political economy affects the resilience of local communities. The research method is mixed and qualitative analysis was used to analyze the impact of political economy on resilience and quantitative analysis was used to measure the extent of resilience. The research has investigated the impact of political economy on the aspects of resilience and measured the extent of resilience from economic, social, institutional, environmental, and physical aspects by selecting the central part of Zanjan. The results of the research show that political economy has caused the lack of role-playing of local communities in resilience creation. In fact, policy-making influenced by political economy has led to the formation of a rent economy, a top-down and centralized management system, and this was the main obstacle in creating resilient local communities directly and indirectly through the reduction of the role of local institutions, spatial segregation, housing rent, reduction of social capital, increasing greenhouse gases and poverty. Therefore, we need a transition from the current institutional environment take steps towards evolution, dynamism, and institutional transformation to create local communities’ resilience in order to create a resilient local society.

Individual vs community resilience: Case of Georgia

Present Paper examines the concepts of individual and community resilience in Georgia. The goal of the present paper is to investigate the interplay between individual and community resilience in the context of donor-funded initiatives at the local rural level through the creation and strengthening of Community-Based Organizations (CBO).
 Present findings are based on ample fieldwork conducted in Georgia in 2022 among the active rural CBOs, using a mixed-method approach: 1) a quantitative phone survey of CBOs; 2) Focus group discussions with beneficiaries of the CBOs’ activities (both online and face-to-face); 3) in-depth interviews with the leaders of the CBOs; 4) in-depth interviews with the representatives of the local self-government, and 5) expert interviews with representatives of donor organizations working to increase the resilience of local communities.
 Based on the data analysis and triangulation, the paper argues that resilience building in Georgian communities is mainly undertaken by the development partners using the top-down approach, and while on an individual level, these interventions do increase resilience, on a community level the impact is much less evident, and in some cases, non-existent. The theoretical and practical implications of our findings are extremely relevant since this is the first attempt to analyze the concept of resilience in the Georgian context and the findings contribute to further future analysis in this regard. On a practical level, our findings could be instrumental for the developmental partners, working in this area in Georgia, to adjust their programming to achieve more sustainable results not only on the individual but community levels.

Fatal architectures and death by design: the infrastructures of state-sponsored climate disasters in Angola and Mozambique

ABSTRACT This article addresses how African states respond to climate crisis, arguing that, beyond the agency and impact of climate phenomena such as drought and cyclones, they are active participants in the production of climate disasters and emergencies, mostly through infrastructural processes that affect land and resource use, and subsequently livelihoods. To demonstrate this, it uses the cases of the drought in southwestern Angola and cyclones in northern and central Mozambique, where such climate phenomena have exposed ‘fatal architectures’ that have dramatically raised the toll of climate victims and refugees. Both extractivist, agro-industrial and hydroelectric projects, as well as other, more deferred infrastructural designs (roads, communication networks, etc.) have challenged the traditional agency and resilience of local communities. Such new infrastructural projects also illustrate how certain perceived long-term solutions to address the climate crisis with industrial and energy reconversion towards greener energies can still become fatal architectures in the context of climate emergencies.

Beyond boundaries. Exploring new post pandemic housing models through the reformulation of collective spaces

The outbreak of the pandemic COVID-19 has profoundly impacted the world where we live in. Especially in the urban and architectural fields, it has posed the necessity to define new housing models, capable of responding to both ambitions and needs of the upcoming post-pandemic society. In particular, two different types of necessities have risen: social issues (the necessity of more spaces for recreation, working, exercising, ...) and environmental issues (the reduction of flood risk, urban heat islands, air pollution, ...). The argument of this paper is that it is possible to overcome this apparent dualism of targets only through the reformulation of the conventional “living” paradigm, and, specifically, through the extension of the latter beyond the (physical and conceptual) “walls” that traditionally define the idea of housing. For this purpose, the outdoor space, conceived as not a mere addition but as a structural component of the living environment, has been identified as the main field of investigation. The effects of the pandemic situation, indeed, have exacerbated the traditional contraposition between private, semi-private and public realms. However, it is exactly through the exploration of this “friction” that it is possible to generate alternative design pathways for the reconceptualization of the conventional housing models towards a social and more sustainable perspective. For this reason, taking as a case study the Albanian city of Lezhë and the surrounding region, the paper reflects on the connection between the ground floor spaces of local dwellings and the outdoor areas around them. In particular, two different space typologies have been considered: the “in-between” space, resulting from the aggregation logics driven by the different historical settlements models; and the “residential/outdoor space interface” between private buildings and the adjoining common areas (streets, squares, parks, etc.). For each of these two categories, the paper tries to establish potential design principles, strategies and tools which can embrace the twofold necessity of creating spaces where to integrate the new recreational, social or working activities which have been making their way into the post-pandemic idea of living, but also to give possible answers to the forementioned impending climate issues. In this way, the ultimate goal is to explore how new housing models based on blurring the traditional demarcation between private and public through the reformulation on the outdoor space idea may not only improve liveability and physical and psychological health of individuals, but also entail wider-scale effects, becoming a beacon to ultimately increase identity, social inclusivity, and climate resilience of local communities.

Capacity development of farmer group in using affordable micro-irrigation for small-scale farming in marginal land

Timely water availability and the use of traditional, less efficient irrigation methods are among the main constraints affecting the productivity of small-scale farming in many developing countries. Climate change, population growth, lack of skills and resources and less community resilience to respond are negatively affecting food security in many lower-income countries. Therefore, the use of small-scale efficient irrigation methods can be instrumental in improving local productivity and community resilience to climate change. Addressing these issues, this study is focused on developing a low-cost micro-irrigation technology and improving the skills of small landholder farming communities on the effective use of this system in the marginal lands of Indonesia. A series of capacity development activities were conducted during the project period, including focused group discussion (FGD), soil and water sampling, and design and construction of low-cost micro-irrigation systems. Moreover, following the principle of seeing is believing and learning by doing, a demonstration plot on the use of high-efficiency micro-irrigation was also established for on-hand training and troubleshooting. The result revealed a tremendous improvement in local awareness and adoption of the micro-irrigation system by the local community. Hence the capacity building strategy adopted emerged successful in achieving improved local awareness and adoption and thus can be recommended for future programs in other areas of developing countries.

EXPLORE THE CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT SCENARIO OF URBAN CITIES IN BANGLADESH: A QUALITATIVE APPROACH

Bangladesh is one of the vulnerable countries which is mostly exposed to the influences of climate change and along with urban areas being particularly at-risk severity. This paper explores the climate change effect scenario of lower and middle-income (LMIC) urban cities in Bangladesh using a qualitative approach. The study aims to categorize the current and potential forthcoming effects of climate change on LMIC urban cities in Bangladesh, as well as the coping and adaptation approaches adopted by the municipal communities. This study was conducted in three LMIC urban cities of Bangladesh, namely Dhaka, Chattogram, and Khulna, using semi-structured key informant interviews (KIIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs) with local government officials, community leaders and key representatives from relevant NGOs. The results of the study show that LMIC urban municipalities in Bangladesh are already experiencing various influences of natural calamities and hazards, such as cyclone, heavy rainfall, flooding, waterlogging, heatwaves, cold wave and sea-level rise high & low tide etc. These include the expansion of early warning systems, flood control measures, and the promotion of sustainable urban development practices. The study also exposes that local communities have developed various coping and adaptation strategies, including the construction of flood-resistant structures, water management systems, and awareness-raising campaigns on climate change. Overall, the study highlights on the urgent requirement for policymakers, urban planners, and others key stakeholders to take proactive procedures to address the impacts of climate change on LMIC urban cities in Bangladesh. The study underscores the importance of accepting a multi-stakeholder approach that contains the active participation of all relevant stakeholders in developing and executing effective adaptation tactics. The findings of this study have important suggestions for policy and practice in Bangladesh and other LMIC countries. The study highlights the need for more comprehensive and integrated approaches to climate change adaptation in LMIC urban cities, which should take into account the social, economic, and political context of these areas. The study also emphasizes the importance of community-based and participatory methods to climate change adaptation, which can increase the resilience and adaptive capacity of urban local communities.

COVID-19 challenges, responses, and resilience among rural Black women: a study protocol.

Despite the aggregated burdens and challenges experienced by rural Black women during the COVID-19 pandemic, many likely also demonstrated strength and resilience to overcome challenges. A mixed methodology and a community-based participatory approach will be used to collect multilevel data on challenges, responses, resilience, and lessons during the pandemic from Black women, community health workers, and community leaders in rural areas in South Carolina (SC). Specifically, the unique circumstances and lived experiences of rural Black women during the COVID-19 pandemic will be documented to understand their needs regarding effective management of social, physical, and mental health challenges through focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with Black women, community health workers, and local community leaders recruited from rural SC communities. Barriers, facilitators, and potential impacts of multilevel resilience development will be identified through a survey administered among rural Black women recruited from 11 rural counties (with one as site for a pilot testing of the questionnaire). A report for public health practice will be developed, including recommended strategies to optimize health systems' emergency preparedness and responses through triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data from multiple sources. Findings in the proposed study will provide valuable references in terms of addressing social determinants of health factor challenges during the pandemic, fostering resilience, and informing evidence-based decision-making for policymakers. The study will contribute to the development of public health emergency preparedness plans, which can promote the resilience of women, their families, and local communities as well as optimize effective preparedness and response of health systems for rural Black women and their families during infectious disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies.

Monitoring holopelagic Sargassum spp. along the Mexican Caribbean coast: understanding and addressing user requirements for satellite remote sensing

Massive influxes of holopelagic Sargassum spp. (Sargassum natans and S. fluitans) have been causing major economic, environmental and ecological problems along the Caribbean coast of Mexico. Predicting the arrival of the sargassum as an aid to addressing these problems is a priority for the government, coastal communities and the society; both mitigating the impacts and providing opportunities for its use. Lack of data concerning precise locations and times of sargassum beachings means that public and private funds are being spent inefficiently and most actions are reactive. The dynamic nature of sargassum beachings/influxes render conventional ground-based monitoring insufficient. Earth observation and cloud-based processing services offer tools to track, quantify and understand sargassum beaching remotely in a frequent, systematic and reliable manner with the temporal and spatial resolutions required for its management. In order to find the right solutions to address this problem, in this paper the needs and requirements of stakeholders are taken into consideration for the development of an Earth observation-based service to monitor sargassum along the Mexican Caribbean coast. Routine monitoring of sargassum over a large area will be cost effective and help mitigate the negative effects of sargassum influxes. The combination of imagery from Planet, specifically their SuperDove systems that provide daily data at 3 m spatial resolutions, with the freely available EU Copernicus data would be useful for many different stakeholders and potential users. A prototype of the service is presented, based on the main user requirements. The system would enable public and private organizations to allocate resources appropriately in affected areas quickly and efficiently, thereby minimizing economic, social and environmental impacts and enhancing the resilience of local communities. It would also assist the sargassum industry in the collection of fresh algae for onward processing. The system could easily be implemented for similar types of environmental monitoring in the Greater Caribbean and beyond.

Assessing Local Community Resilience Through Co-design Processes by an Australian Primary Health Network

Introduction:The Sydney North Health Network (SNHN) covers an area of 350 square miles in Eastern Australia. It is one of 31 Primary Health Networks (PHNs) across Australia. The purpose of PHNs is to improve access to primary healthcare particularly those at risk of poor health outcomes. During disasters these vulnerable groups may be even more disadvantaged. As part of SNHN's role in enhancing the wellbeing, resilience, and preparedness of communities and primary healthcare providers during disasters, SNHN is focusing on recovery and resilience initiatives that build on local strengths, while addressing challenges.Method:The aim of this community engagement research was to determine the impact of recent extreme weather events on the community, and identify strategies to improve wellbeing, resilience and preparedness. The research was approached through a co-design process to explore assets, strengths and vulnerabilities within vulnerable community members during disasters, and to ascertain their perspective on their needs during disasters. SNHN funded a well-established local community organization to conduct surveys and focus groups with the SNHN community to inform future community-led programs to support individuals and communities in disasters.Results:Participants considered impacts on mental and physical health, children, the environment, and property as key challenges. Equally, they acknowledged they didn't start as a "blank slate", but came to the disaster with considerable individual and community strengths and assets, that enabled their resilience, including numerous resources to support social capital. Person-centered, community-inclusive planning, preparedness, and connectedness was seen as key solution.Conclusion:In order to promote and enhance the wellbeing, resilience, and preparedness of communities and primary healthcare providers, successful recovery and resilience initiatives should build on local strengths, while addressing challenges. Individuals and communities should be integral in designing programs to build their local resilience and wellbeing, as they know their attributes and strengths, and their needs.

Factors increasing the financial capacity and development of territorial communities in the context of modern challenges

There are various challenges in today's world, such as economic crises, global pandemics, and climate change, which have a major impact on the financial resilience and development of local communities. Today, the decentralization process has been completed, with territorial communities gaining more powers and responsibilities. Understanding the factors that contribute to the financial resilience and development of these communities is crucial to ensure their efficiency and viability, as well as opportunities for improved public governance, cost optimization, and more efficient use of resources. The article aims to examine the factors increasing the financial capacity and development of territorial communities in the context of modern challenges. Results. The article identifies internal and external factors for increasing the financial capacity of territorial communities. The advantages of the competitiveness of territorial communities are studied, and the main features for strengthening their financial stability are identified. The possibilities of local communities are considered in determining the attractiveness for investment in their territory, accounting for available resources and ways of their use, the use of labor, as well as the benefits that may arise during the relocation of enterprises due to active armed conflicts in a large territory of the country. Conclusion. Investment resources of territorial communities and the possibilities of their use are characterized. The investment attractiveness of territories is determined. The objects of investment activity may include any property, fixed assets, current assets in all sectors of the national economy, securities and targeted cash deposits, scientific and technical products, property rights, and resources. The instruments of investment attraction, their legal basis, and their effectiveness for the development of territorial communities are substantiated. Keywords: territorial communities, capacity of territorial communities, competitiveness of territorial communities, strategy, socio-economic development, decentralization.

Proposed solutions for marine debris in the Windward Islands- perspectives from key policy makers and policy influencers

With the rise of regionalization and globalized approaches to dealing with the associated sources and impacts of marine debris, it is often a challenge to properly capture the unique context and special needs of small island developing states (SIDS) worldwide. In the SIDS context, locals’ perspectives should have a voice in scientific research, as well as in devising potential solutions, at all and different scales. With the view to tailor solutions for the prevention, reduction and mitigation of marine debris, this research explores the professional opinion of local knowledge holders including policy makers from government organizations (GOs) and key policy influencers in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the five English-Speaking Windward Islands of the Eastern Caribbean. To achieve that objective, surveys were conducted with these two groups in Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. On the causes of the debris problem, the survey revealed that the lack of a proper waste management systems on islands, recycling limitations and inappropriate disposal behaviors of the population are generally thought to be the main contributory factors to the accelerating problem of marine debris. Further, phenomena such as Sargassum influxes, sea level rise and extreme weather events exacerbate the problem including most especially tropical storms and hurricanes. On the recommended solutions, over eighty percent of the participants identified monitoring and policing services as a main constraint that prohibits sound coastal and marine litter handling. Ninety-five percent identified establishing feasible recycling systems and sixty-seven percent identified changing social behaviors (including a combination of product and consumer literacy, disposal habits, compliance with laws and regulations) as national priorities for enabling on-the-ground actions for better coastal and marine litter prevention and reduction going forward. These findings reinforce recently published work which indicates the need for effective solid waste management systems in the Eastern Caribbean for cleaner and healthier oceans. An additional recommendation was proposed to address a major source of the marine litter problem- upstream producers. Furthermore, given the natural events component, this research proposes incorporating the Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction in future proposed mitigation measures with a view to building the resilience of SIDS and local communities in combating the impacts of marine debris.

Determining the temporal patterns of the impact of financial determinants and public health factors on the local community resilience in the context of overcoming the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic

In the article it is developed a methodological toolkit for determining the temporal patterns of the influence of financial determinants and public health factors on the local community resilience in the context of overcoming the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, based on the use of panel data regression modeling (testing for the presence of a lag of up to 3 years). The practical approbation of the approach was carried out on the basis of a sample from 21 European countries for the period 2000-2021. The following indicators were chosen as local community resilience parameters (outcome indicators): level of tax revenue decentralization; the level of income decentralization (ratio of own incomes of local budgets to central government incomes); the level of expenditure decentralization (the ratio of own expenditures of local budgets to central government expenditures). The financial and infrastructural factors of public health, the impact of which on performance indicators was studied, are the following: the number of beds (per 1,000 people); capital expenditures for health care (% of GDP); current health care expenditures (% of GDP); domestic government health care expenditures (% of current health care expenditures); domestic private health care expenditures (% of current health care expenditures); out-of-pocket health care expenditures (% of current health care expenditures). Based on the results of the approbation of the developed approach, immediate drivers and inhibitors of ensuring local community resilience, as well as drivers and inhibitors of delayed action, were identified. The obtained results allow us to note that in the context of strengthening the financial resilience of local community, it is necessary to increase the number of hospital beds, as well as the volume of current expenditures on health care, and to ensure this growth mainly by the expenditures from private financial resources and out-of-pocket expenditures.