Pathways to Resilience IV: Global South Perspectives

Reclaiming community resilience toward a more effective approach to aid
Presenter: Kathy Duryee (Australian National University, Australia)
Introduction: What is community resilience, who defines it and how do communities become more resilient? Much of community resilience aid policy and practice focuses on human/environmental relationships, with frameworks for livelihood and food strategy in cyclical drought just one example of recent trends. 
Methods: My approach is to consider and include environmental disaster parameters where relevant, but to expand beyond their confines to reflect the larger complexity of contributors and obstacles to resilience across the community system, inclusive of any context or culture. This paper reviews the academic literature around promotive factors, protective factors and competencies, and draws on 10+ years of experience working in myriad aid contexts globally: 1) to reclaim community resilience as a more comprehensive lens than disaster management alone; and, 2) to propose an emergent methodological approach for partnering with communities to address their resilience goals—free of pre-determined criteria.
Findings: The findings will suggest that by recognizing communities as systems, by acknowledging resilience as an ongoing process, by shifting toward community-centered decision-making and action, and by utilizing emergent findings on which to base policy and programming, aid will enhance its efficacy in supporting communities to become more resilient.