Within this, it is important to note that resilience, like vulnerability and risk, is a dynamic concept. In addition resilience is a multi-dimensional concept that requires the simultaneous measurement of several factors, both short and long term. This goes against the current orthodoxy of monitoring and evaluation practice, which tends to be highly sectoral. Finally, it should be noted that the term “disaster-resilience”, rather than “drought-resilience” is being used here. Although drought is recognised as the most frequent and major stress experienced by communities in the drylands of the HoA, it is not the only one. While it is important that shocks and stresses are not pre-determined or limited, this needs to be balanced with the need to define what a community is resilient to, and whether it actually experiences disaster or is just chronically vulnerable.
3.2.2 Existing Models for Disaster Resilience Existing resilience models can typically be categorised into two groups: models that attempt to capture/ describe a system-wide approach to resilience (for example, DFID/TANGO, Practical Action, Fraser); and models that attempt to define and measure the characteristics of resilience at a community level (for example, FAO, Oxfam, and Tulane). The framework presented here draws from and builds upon some of these various models3. However, it also differentiates from these models in that it is designed to be a participatory, community based methodology. It is designed as a package of interventions that can be applied in many contexts, rather a one-off study. Annex 1 contains a brief summary of other existing models. The specific mandate of this assignment is to design a quantitative impact assessment of interventions on resilience at the community or household level. As such, the system-wide models encompass a much wider range of factors than those captured in this study. However, it is very important to relate the model developed here to the wider system, as the findings that come out of this approach will need to be informed by other processes and actors. The models that attempt to define the characteristics of resilience at a community level are much more relevant to the specific mandate of this assignment, as ultimately changes in these characteristics as a result of programming will provide a quantitative impact assessment at a community or household level. However, consultation on these characteristics indicated that these should come from the communities themselves, and preferably be grouped using existing categories, rather than introducing a new set of categories. System-Wide Approaches System-wide approaches seek to define a range of activities, actors and processes that are part of a resilience building system. For example, a recent paper by TANGO International, funded by the World Bank, DFID and USAID, presented a composite framework for assessing resilience, with a specific focus
3
Frankenberger,T. and Nelson, S. (Feb. 2013) “Background Paper for the Expert Consultation on Resilience Measurement for Food Security”; and “Summary of the Expert Consultation on Resilience Measurement for Food Security” TANGO International
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