Towards a Quantifiable Measure of Resilience

The objective of this paper is twofold. First it illustrates and discusses some of the challenges related to the measurement of resilience by reviewing some of the most recently published and grey literature on resilience in relation to food security. Second it proposes a new framework that addresses some of the concerns and limitations of resilience measurement identified in that literature. The main postulate of this framework is that the ‘costs of resilience’ (that is, the different ex-ante and ex-post investments, losses, sacrifices, and costs that people have to undertake at individual and collective levels to ‘go through’ a shock or an adverse event) provide an appropriate and independent metric to measure resilience across scales and dimensions. The paper shows how the independent nature of this metrics offers an explanatory power that can be used to infer, in a testable and rigorous manner potential, causalities between the metric and household and/or community characteristics. Empirical and theoretical examples are used throughout the paper to illustrate the arguments

The Climate Change – Migration – Urbanisation Nexus: Workshop Report

The concept of the ‘Climate Change – Migration – Urbanisation’ nexus emerged from the recognition that climate change, migration, and urbanisation are closely and intimately linked together, and can potentially become sources of vulnerability. Addressing this ‘Climate Change – Migration – Urbanisation’ (CCMU) Nexus requires consideration of social, political, and economic driving forces, including rural-to-urban migration, reshaping of urban space, changing livelihoods, and wealth inequalities. Against this background, a one-day workshop was organised with a group of international experts from various organisations, including IIED, University of Sussex, ISET and the Institute of Development Studies. Held at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) on 5 November 2012, the workshop was aimed at providing the first element of a more ambitious project. The goal of that project is to establish a substantial research programme bringing together partners from the global North and South to tackle some of the fundamental issues in this CCMU nexus.DFI

Navigating the politics and processes of food systems transformation: guidance from a holistic framework

The call for transforming food systems from their current unsustainable trajectories toward more desirable, healthy, sustainable, resilient, and equitable outcomes has received unprecedented echoes recently—particularly following the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit. But lack of guidance on how to do so in a comprehensive and integrated manner has left many actors uncertain, skeptical, or even low-spirited about the prospects of delivering such an ambitious task. Through this work, we argue that food systems transformation is not an impossible goal to aspire for; however, whether we achieve any form of transformation is essentially down to how food systems politics are enacted. Politics, we posit, is at the center of creating and maintaining current unsustainable food system trajectories and will also be crucial in guiding change processes toward sustainable goals. In this paper, we explore this argument through a conceptual framework. The framework, which is relevant for both high and lower-income countries, integrates multiple perspectives and practical experiences on transition, transformation and politics to propose a holistic diagnostic and prescriptive tool for food systems transformation. Three critical lessons emerge from this: first, the transformation (of food systems) must be normative, deliberate and goal-oriented—as opposed to driven by technological innovations; second, the process must account for, integrate, and build on the multi-dimensional and multi-procedural nature of the politics that drive (or resist) changes; and third, the transformation needs to build on a strong driving environment, one that transforms not just food systems but also their governance

Resilience of local food systems and links to food security – A review of some important concepts in the context of COVID-19 and other shocks

The objective of this review is to explore and discuss the concept of local food system resilience in light of the disruptions brought to those systems by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. The discussion, which focuses on low and middle income countries, considers also the other shocks and stressors that generally affect local food systems and their actors in those countries (weather-related, economic, political or social disturbances). The review of existing (mainly grey or media-based) accounts on COVID-19 suggests that, with the exception of those who lost members of their family to the virus, as per June 2020 the main impact of the pandemic derives mainly from the lockdown and mobility restrictions imposed by national/local governments, and the consequence that the subsequent loss of income and purchasing power has on people’s food security, in particular the poor. The paper then uses the most prominent advances made recently in the literature on household resilience in the context of food security and humanitarian crises to identify a series of lessons that can be used to improve our understanding of food system resilience and its link to food security in the context of the COVID-19 crisis and other shocks. Those lessons include principles about the measurement of food system resilience and suggestions about the types of interventions that could potentially strengthen the abilities of actors (including policy makers) to respond more appropriately to adverse events affecting food systems in the future