Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and Practice

25 answers in Table 2 and summarized strategic agendas in the Results section show that most of the delegates have local/regional goals for the system, namely to promote local economic development. Alternatively, farmers focus on their current urgent problem of living in insecure food conditions. In other words, there are two main strategic agendas for the system. One agenda (shared by many stakeholders) is seeking to use the system as a tool for local and/or regional economic development. The other agenda, held by the farmers, is to have food all year round. While there might be different arguments in favour of one agenda over the other one, it is unlikely that regional solutions will have any impact unless urgent issues challenging the farmers’ own subsistence are addressed. Similarly, small-scale solutions, addressing farmers immediate needs, might prove to be unsustainable in the mid-term if the wider problem is not tackled. Wider differences are found when looking at stakeholders’ mental models reflected in the CLDs developed. Academics and NGO delegates describe the system in endogenous terms. This endogenous perspective is reflected in the feedback loops identified in the CLD they drafted (see Figure 4b,c). They look at the problem in a systemic way and try to find solutions within the system boundaries. They have, however, a different understanding of the vicious circles constraining food security. On the one hand, academics focus on the management of the water resources and reservoirs as a potential leverage point. “The obvious cause of the problem is the deficiencies the communities face to access water…. This is why that, now that droughts are becoming more common, farmers face more problems.” (Academic delegate 1) On the other hand, NGO delegates blame farmers’ lack of technical skills and training as the cause of their poor productivity and, hence, food insecurity. The solution they propose is to increase training and to provide farmers with better seeds to increase their productivity in a sustainable way. “You see, there are several complications in the situation of these poor people because their culture doesn’t let them move forward. They use the same techniques they have been using since pre-colonial times. They have no formal education. You know that most of them cannot read. It is really difficult to teach them and change their minds. We need to make an effort to provide them with the right seeds and the proper instruction to use them well.” (NGO delegate 2) The government delegates describe the system as exogenous driven. These delegates think the way to influence the system is through the artificial enhancement of farmers’ productivity (see Figure 4a). Even though they identified a feedback loop in the system, their proposed solution focuses on ways to quickly boost the system performance, namely by using more fertilizers to increase productivity. “The government is committed to provide a sustainable and plausible solution by providing the fertilizers they (farmers) need to increase their productivity and become more competitive…. Once they (farmers) level up with the market, the food affordability should be a natural condition.” (Central government delegate 2) Farmers perceive the problem in a very different way. In their perspective, the increasing uncertainty about rainfall is transforming the system into a chaotic one. From their perspective, using more expensive seeds or more fertilisers will be useless if the weather conditions are not good. Farmers do not feel in control of the system. They feel they are victims of the uncertainty of the yields that they will get at the end of the season. “The problem is you don’t know if the yield is going to be good or not…. Now you never know…. If the yield goes bad, we lost the money we spent on seeds and fertilizers.” (Farmer delegate 4) “The weather now cannot be predicted…. You gamble every time you plant.” (Farmer delegate 1) Furthermore, the farmers do not see higher production as a means to increase their revenues but only as a means to increase their food reserves (see Figure 4d). In their view, the region is isolated, and they do not have access to other markets to trade. The benefit they perceive from higher production is in having more maize to build food reserves for the future. Understanding and acknowledging different goals and mental models about the systemwill lead to a wider scope of analysis and might result in a more balanced decision-making process [34]. Short-term solutions and systemic interventions could provide a balanced view between achieving short-term outcomes and their long-term consequences. Farmers’ chaotic view of the world challenges the mechanistic understanding other stakeholdersmight have and balances their deterministic viewby the acknowledgement of uncertainty. The system cannot be assumed mechanistically following economic rules since human behaviour under stressful situations adapts in sometimes unexpected ways [7]. An oversimplified understanding about how different groups will react during a crisis might lead to