Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and Practice

169 comment briefly on some of the potential implications of their findings in terms of how they might be applied in human communities. A good example of this is the work done by Brian Walker and David Salt in their books Resilience Thinking (2006) and Resilience Practice (2012), which provide practical guidance on how to understand and apply concepts of social-ecological resilience in real-world settings. It would also be useful to apply this type of approach to human resilience, using examples like the study by Almedom et al. (2007, as cited in Walker and Salt 2012) on the psychosocial transition in post-war Eritrea, which is briefly referenced in the latter book. On the implementation side, funders of development projects have a key role to play. Beginning with the initial design, development assistance contracts that seek to enhance human resilience could recommend or require the implementer to review the relevant resilience literature or resources and identify any analytical frameworks or findings that may be useful. For example, a project team focusing on natural disaster resilience in the South Pacific may, as a result of reviewing the case study compiled by Rumbach and Foley (2014) about the 2009 tsunami in American Samoa, think more carefully about how to most effectively engage indigenous institutions through a national emergency response plan. The Workbook for Practitioners prepared by the Gunderson et al. (2010), while not designed for disaster preparedness per se, provides an easy-to-use worksheet for stakeholder mapping of local formal and informal institutions. Relatedly, funders of resilience projects would do well to allow for an emergent contract design in which some of the specific objectives and approaches are initially kept broad so they can be refined through consultation with the relevant communities. While the funder will often pay for monitoring and evaluation personnel to track implementation progress and estimate the impact attributable specifically to the project investment, this information may be of little value to the local community and will quickly lose relevance once the project has been completed. There is also a need for projects to invest time, money, and personnel into engaging with relevant local institutions, such as ministries of health, universities, or other organizations, to develop monitoring and evaluation mechanisms that are meaningful and useful for them. As Walker and Salt point out (2012:53), “resilience practice is not so much about producing a single ‘best’ system description as it is about creating a process whereby the system description is constantly revisited, reiterated, and fed into adaptive management.” THE NEED FOR APPLIED RESILIENCE RESEARCH WILL CONTINUE TO GROW As global interest in resilience continues to grow, whether related to climate change adaptation or other events, there will be increasing demand to translate what we know about resilience into practical action in order to strengthen it. Disaster relief and humanitarian response efforts will continue to include more language about resilience; in some cases, project funding proposals may even require it. As this happens, it will be important for practitioners to make sure “resilience” is not just a buzzword referenced in purpose statements and project plans, but a holistic view of how communities respond to adversity. Some interventions designed to enhance communities’ ability to cope with extreme weather events may involve changes that are easy to observe, but the psychosocial and social-ecological factors should not be overlooked. The only way to make sure this happens is to actively engage local communities, not just through perfunctory consultations or buy-in from key leaders at the beginning, but throughout planning, implementation, and assessment. Insights from the literature on community resilience and available resources, such as those compiled by the Resilience Alliance, can help practitioners think critically and strategically about how to do this. Although these changes may in some cases require more time, effort, and flexibility in development assistance contracts, it is the only way to ensure that these resilience-promotion efforts actually benefit the communities they affect and that those benefits last beyond the duration of the initiative. A project may last 2 to 5 years; all signs point to climate change lasting much longer.