theconnectionbetweenresiliencedevelopmentdrr_sept2013

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Resilience, Development and DRR | MERCY CORPS 1

RESILIENCE,DEVELOPMENT ANDDISASTER RISK REDUCTION

Myanmar Sanjay Gurung/Mercy Corp

PURPOSE

This paper, Resilience, Development and Disaster Risk Reduction, strives toexplain the relationship between disaster risk reduction (DRR), developmentprogramming and a ocus on building resilience, with a specic example romthe Irrawaddy Delta in Myanmar.

OVERVIEW

The denitions, boundaries and overlap between DRR, development and resilience is a substantive issue anda critical discussion or relie and development practitioners to take part init is not just a matter o simplyredening terminology. Although DRR and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) proessionals have beenexploring the concept o resilience or many years, the recent prioritization o the topic by a broader spectrumo relie and development actors has brought new perspectives into the conversation. NGOs now need to movethe discussion and our practices in what are oten sector-ocused departments to embrace a systems-based,integrated approach that increases resilience by accounting or hazards, long-term risks and shiting political,social, ecological and economic contexts. This will impact the quality, and ultimately, the durability or legacy oour work by changing the way relie and development actors engage with local stakeholders and systems andbroadening the realm o that engagement.

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OUR PERSPECTIVE

Disaster Risk Reduction programming can serve as an entry point to building the resilience o poor and/or vulnerable communities. DRR is a concept and perspective1 that includes practical, tactical activities, suchas early warning systems or community emergency preparedness activities, and which has the ultimate goalo increasing individual, community and national resilience by ocusing specically on natural hazards. The

DRR approach is also converging with the CCA approach, which oers a longer-term viewpoint and ocusesmore sharply on the interplay between complex ecological and social systems. Todays resilience conversationbroadens DRRs original ocus rom natural hazards to include human-made hazards (like confict, environmentaldegradation and poverty), and links our relie and development approachesas we more clearly fesh out and connect the coping, adaptive, andtransormative capacities that our activities aim to build. This perspectivedeepens our understanding o human and natural drivers o hazards, and inturn encourages a more systems-based approach to our work.

Put simply, DRR reminds development actors to actor in the potentialimpact o hazards to planned programming, as well as tactics that makecommunities better able to resist and cope with these hazards. Theresilience conversation, meanwhile, reminds both DRR and developmentpractitioners to ensure that intervention outcomes are made as robust andfexible as possible in the context o the broader systems in which theyexist. The recent ocus on resilience, thereore, encourages us not onlyto consider the extent to which development outcomes can be resistantto hazards, or the extent to which DRR work can better be linked totraditional development outcomes, but also the extent to which both DRRand development program outcomes can be durable, transormative andadaptable in the context o the dynamic systems that infuence and enablethese outcomes.

UNDERSTANDING THE CONNECTIONS

From a development practitioner perspective, DRR accomplishes tactical interventions designed to reducethe vulnerability o specic target groups to recurrent hazards. These actions are prioritized by engagedcommunities, and public, private and civic sector actors. Eective DRR relies on good governance, anduses rameworks, such as the Hyogo Framework or Action, to improve the systems that infuence disastermanagement. It can contribute to both sustainability and resilience by building disaster-related capacityat multiple levels: individuals, communities, institutions and industry. DRR practitioners can have signicantinfuence over program design and implementationensuring that potential hazards are understood andaccounted or. DRR practitioners can also use the urgency o the work as a rst step, an entry point, towardsbuilding resilience by bringing partners rom dierent sectors, civil, government and private, around the table towork together on critical, dened issues.

Development programs, which could better incorporate DRR to make outcomes more durable, are designedto accomplish interventions that undamentally improve the living conditions o target groups over time.Development programming aims not only to reduce the vulnerability o target populations to hazards, but

1 UN ISDR, 2009. The concept and practice o reducing disaster risks through systematic eorts to analyze and manage the causal actors o disas-ters, including through reduced exposure to hazards, lessened vulnerability o people and propert y, wise management o land and the environment,and improved preparedness or adverse events.

Myanmar Benny Manser/Mercy Corp


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also acilitates sustainable improvements in economic status,ood security and nutrition, social and economic inclusion, humandevelopment, governance, asset creation, social cohesion, publichealth, human rights and social justice, and other commonly citedoutcomes. As with DRR, development practitioners can havesignicant responsibility and authority over program design and

implementation, but as with DRR, the sustainability o developmentoutcomes will be infuenced by systems and orces that are at leastpartially outside o our control.

Resilience is concerned with the durability, adaptability andtransormative capacities o DRR and development outcomes.It not only ocuses on reducing vulnerability and improving livingconditions, but also on the ability o target populations to preserveand augment these outcomes as the contexts where they liveand work shit. Ideally, these populations would build the capacityto infuence systems and create opportunity or positive change.Resilience, thereore, necessarily occurs in a context in which practitioners have less authorityand viewed roma program implementation perspective, less responsibilityto infuence outcomes. It involves broader systems,actors and institutions at multiple levels and scales, and NGOs have increasingly limited infuence on theseelements. Facilitation, advocacy, local institutional strengthening eorts, and the principles o partnership areimportant tools in the context o resilience thinking, and should guide our eorts to have a positive infuence onthe power dynamics, politics and governance systems present within most societies.

UNDERSTANDING THE CHALLENGES

There are several important challenges to engaging in resilience-ocused programming rom an NGOperspective. First, although our eorts may target aspects o certain systems to contribute to building resilience,we must also recognize that these activities are only a small part o the resilience equation, and this in turn

raises questions o attribution, accountability and easibility. Second, we must recognize that resilience isnot necessarily a pro-poor concept it is possible to be resilient and poor, and the poor living in unstablecircumstances will oten diversiy to be more resilient. Yet NGOs like Mercy Corps are concerned primarily withpoverty alleviation and thereore must engage with resilience-building initiatives rom a pro-poor perspective.Third, the program design parameters available to most NGOs which generally include xed durations, metricsand deliverables may not be the most conducive design parameters to helping local stakeholders build moredurable, transormative and adaptive institutions and capacities in the contexts o the changing socio-politicaland economic systems in which they live, and in which DRR and development program outcomes exist.

In clariying the relationship between DRR, development and resilience, the undamental premise o this paperis that resilience is not just a new term to represent old concepts, but rather that resilience represents a step

beyond DRR and development programs as they have typically been conceptualized and implemented to dateby NGOs. Resilience-ocused programming must explicitly concern itsel with the durability, adaptability, andtransormative capacity o DRR and/or development outcomes in the context o the broader systems in whichthey exist. Thereore, these programs must be inormed by improved analysis o these systems and must alsoinclude revised partnership and capacity building approaches to build not just more durable or sustainableoutcomes, but also stronger adaptive and transormative capabilities.

Resilience at Mercy CorpsFor Mercy Corps, resilience is defned as

the capacity o communities in complex

socio-ecological systems to learn, cope,

adapt, and transorm in the ace o shocks

and stresses. Our role is to understand how

systems support the communities we serve,

and to ensure that the poor and vulnerablehave options and opportunities to become

ully integrated into resilient systems. We

will continue to serve communities in

line with our Vision or Change, seeking

to integrate our activities with drivers o

change and the civil society, public and

private sector actors who can build positive,

inclusive, resilient systems.


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To illustrate these points, an analysis o recent Mercy Corps work in theIrrawady Delta o Myanmar is included in this paper.

From the Field:

Irrawaddy Delta, Myanmar a Needor Renewed Resilience Thinking

OverviewCyclone Nargis struck Myanmar in 2008. The storm surge fowed 40 km into theIrrawaddy Delta killing more than 138,000 people. Today, communities in the Deltaregion remain poor and highly vulnerable. Smallholder paddy armers have resumedproduction, and although levels have improved since Cyclone Nargis, theyare still low compared to other major rice growing regions in Southeast

Asia. Additionally, livelihood opportunities or landless people remainstunted, and agriculture continues to be the principal source olivelihoods or the region, even with low productivity.

Where response work has been implemented, little developmenthas been accomplished because the primary ocus has beenon recovery and rehabilitation. Most DRR interventions, in thiscontext and application, have not ocused on reducing poverty, andthe success o the intervention will only be realized i another cyclonestrikes. What has been the relationship between DRR, developmentand resilience so far, and how can we reframe our thinking to reduce poverty and vulnerability?

DRRThe most visible DRR activity in the Irrawaddy Delta has ocused on building storm shelters. Current eortsinvolve developing early warning systems against storms. These eorts aim to save lives in the event o a uturedisaster, but do not ocus on reducing poverty. They ocus, rightully, on the most pressing and immediate riskthe area aces, which is the impact o another large cyclone. Early warning systems and shelters protect the liveso rich and poor alike, but do not protect or help grow assets. In the atermath o another cyclone, more liveswill be saved than was possible beore, but it is likely poor and vulnerable people will return to a worse situationthan they had experienced previously. At best, i vulnerable communities are able to adapt and reorganize, theymight return to the level o poverty they experienced beore the storm. People with xed assets that are lost mayactually all into poverty because those non-movable assets houses, shop stock and rice mills have becomea source o vulnerability. In this specic example, DRR is designed as a tactical response to one or a ew clearly

identied and immediate hazards; it has not been designed as a poverty-based intervention.

DevelopmentMercy Corps programming in the Irrawaddy Delta has ocused on poverty alleviation in agriculture, energy andenvironmental sustainability. Our programming engages systems thinking, an important component o resilience,and is ocused on the integration o market development and climate adaptation. A Making Markets Workor the Poor (M4P) approach aims to grow household incomes by improving agricultural productivity, helping

MYANMAR

NAYPYIDAW

IRRAWADDY

DELTA


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poor households engage in higher returning economic activities,and improving the eciency and integration o market actors inagricultural value chains. It explicitly addresses income poverty byimproving core market relationships and transactions, supporting

unctions, and rules o a market system to improve access andterms o access or the poor.

Our climate adaptation approach analyses the likely impact oclimate change on these agricultural systems and assesses thevulnerability o planned interventions. In the Delta region, changingweather patterns have reduced rice and vegetable productivity.Recognizing this, our team has been working in partnership withlocal and international experts to identiy the best cultivars andspecies able to cope with anticipated changes in weather.

In contrast to traditional development approaches to reducingpoverty among smallholder armers, the M4P approach asks:Why isnt the system itsel providing solutions and how can we address the constraints that are preventing itrom doing so? The climate adaptation analysis then addresses: What are the vulnerabilities that recommendedagricultural activities might ace in the long-term, given anticipated climate change challenges? What strategiesare needed to ensure sustainable impact is possible?

The Need for Renewed Resilience ThinkingMercy Corps development programming was specically aligned with its poverty-related mission. The economicand climate adaptation programming were systems-related, but made an implicit assumption that the governanceramework would remain relatively stable. This has changed.

Myanmar is going through intense political, economic and social transormation. Unprecedented rates o change indiverse areas, including social mobility, land use planning and urbanization, will occur. A broader series o systemsnow needs to be analyzed or the potential impact o this transormation on the poor and vulnerable. Resiliencethinking provides the means to do so.

The role o the poor, whether as beneciaries or victims, is impossible to predict in Myanmar because o the rapidpace o change and political uncertainty. Whether past development initiatives will continue to provide benetsas intended is now in question. And the relevance o uture development interventions will need to be consideredin relation to the relatively vast incoming investment fows that will certainly not be pro-poor ocused. There is noguarantee o land tenure and access to resources among the poor in this context.

There is an urgent need to place locale-specic development interventions, including those in the Irrawaddy Delta,in the context o rapidly changing socio-economic and political systems. Dialogue around this can be eectivelyramed in the discourse on resilience the capacity o complex socio-ecological systems to cope, adapt andtransorm in the ace o shocks and stresses. Renewed thinking and assessment o vulnerabilities are neededin Myanmar to determine how the emerging or evolving systems aect the poor and vulnerable. The role o thedevelopment community should be to ensure that these communities are part o resilience-building processes, asoutlined in this paper, across economic and political sectors.

Myanmar Sanjay Gurung/Mercy Corp


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ABOUT MERCY CORPSMercy Corps helps people turn the crises they conront into theopportunities they deserve. Driven by local needs, our programsprovide communities in the worlds toughest places with the toolsand support they need to transorm their own lives. Our worldwideteam in 42 countries is improving the lives o 19 million people.For more inormation, visit mercycorps.org.

45 SW Ankeny StreetPortland, Oregon 97204

888.842.0842mercycorps.org

CONTACTANNA CHILCZUK

Regional Program Director, East [email protected]

JOSH DEWALD

Regional Program Director, Central and South [email protected]

SHANNON ALEXANDER

Director, Resilience, Governance and Partnership,

Technical Support [email protected]

JIM JARVIE

Climate and Resilience [email protected]

theconnectionbetweenresiliencedevelopmentdrr_sept2013

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