Resilience Realities:Resilience and Development Practice in Vanuatu

This report draws on two weeks of fieldwork undertaken in November 2015. Discussions and interviews were held in communities with different histories of engagement with development organisations, exploring their experiences of Tropical Cyclone Pam and the on-going El Nino event. The findings reflect on themes found in the academic literature to synthesise recommendations for those responsible for development programming and practice. Analysis focuses on four topics: the significance of differences between social groups in determining resilience outcomes; the nature of local resilience among communities with little or no experience of development interventions; the consequences of development actions for local resilience; and the potential of an alternative framing – resourcefulness – to support a transformation in relationships between communities and different government authorities. Key lessons emerge from this analysis. The difficulties of addressing the complex manner in which social difference is produced and reproduced must be a central concern for development practitioners. Without explicit attention to the deep roots of social and cultural difference, resilience interventions will reinforce or exacerbate existing patterns of vulnerability and exclusion. This remains the case even when participatory approaches such as village development or disaster risk committees are adopted as a mechanism to secure representation of different social groups. In communities that are isolated from development assistance, local resilience is underpinned by intricately woven and diverse livelihood practices and supported by the ability to capitalise on relationships with actors at other scales. There are, however, important limitations to local resilience, much of which is wrapped up in the marginalisation of communities from outside support and formal institutions of government. Deeply pernicious forms of resilience are also in evidence, in particular in practices of gender-based violence and ostracism of women from other islands. These issues must move higher up the development agenda if resilience programming is to lead to equitable improvements in wellbeing. At the same time, the fieldwork evidence suggests that interventions can undermine local resilience and develop dependency on NGOs as sources of resources, knowledge and skills. NGOs need to develop strategies that gradually build effective and supportive relationships between communities and different levels of government as part of a long term exit strategy. Finally, the report considers the potential shortcomings of resilience as a framing for development. In development programming and practice, resilience is associated with other frameworks in order to address issues of power and equity. This reflects the neutrality of resilience; it is a concept that has the potential to challenge inequality but is not inherently anti-poverty. As such, adopting a resilience discourse carries a risk, as resilience can and has been taken up by policy makers to justify the continued marginalisation of poor communities from government support. In programming terms, there is cause for significant concern that the weaknesses of resilience overlap with longstanding weaknesses in development practice in supporting communities to challenge resource distribution and the iniquitous effects of public policy. The report closes by proposing an alternative framing – resourcefulness – as an important counterpoint to resilience programming. Resourcefulness aims to support local people to engage in processes that lead to changes that are locally conceived and locally felt. The central concern is with practical support to secure a more equitable share of resources, via a framing that was found to resonate with the interests and priorities expressed by communities during fieldwork

Adaptation and Resilience in Vanuatu

The report documents findings from fieldwork in Vanuatu undertaken during November 2014. The intention is to contextualise the resilience building work of the Vanuatu NGO Climate Change Adaptation Program within themes that have emerged within the academic literature on climate change adaptation and resilience, and on community-based adaptation in particular. These themes challenge those concerned with adaptation to think more critically about the nature of communities, and to explore how power and politics at different scales (from the local to the global) influence the opportunities for and constraints on adaptation for different members of a community. The resilience perspective pushes understanding of adaptation further, inviting systematic consideration of how programming can address not only climate change impacts, but also how agency and structure can be addressed to empower vulnerable groups in the face of climate change. The findings draw attention to how vulnerability is defined by multiple interconnected issues that have different significance in the lives of different community members, each of whom have their own perceptions of risk and access to opportunities. While relationships defined by power and cultural norms shape how local risks are understood, prioritised and managed in adaptation decision making processes, a focus on equitable decision making can support the emergence of adaptive capacity that is the basis for future adaptive actions that benefit the whole community. Adaptive capacity also demands opportunities for local people to build their technical and decision making capacities and relationships with external actors. While this is increasingly understood by the agencies working within the Vanuatu NGO Climate Change Adaptation Program at the level of rhetoric, it remains for a deeper change in perspective to develop. It will take a significant investment of time if NGOs are to step back and restrict themselves to facilitating community access to information and knowledge as a precursor to informing their own processes of decision making. For the most part, structural issues, which fundamentally limit adaptation and development choices, remain in the background to the projects studied during the fieldwork. The baseline assessments that underpin community-based adaptation must take account of structural issues at multiple scales, and establish whether support for more equitable social, cultural or political change is a necessary part of action on adaptation. Taken together, this analysis supports the intention of the program to shift community-based adaptation away from its comfort zone. However, agencies will need to work hard to push beyond the familiar focus on climate change impacts and capacity building that supports individual agency, and towards actions that link agency and structure through support for broad-based coalitions for change. In support of this goal, rights-based strategies are proposed to address structural constraints on adaptive capacity. By exploring the mechanisms that underpin marginalisation and exclusion, rights-based approaches enable development actors to support vulnerable communities in seeking reform via social and political processes or through appeal to legal or administrative systems

Securing the social foundation : a rights-based approach to planetary boundaries

The ‘planetary boundaries’ framework identifies Earth system processes that contribute to the stability and resilience of the planet (Rockström et al., 2009a), setting out the limits to changes the Earth can support for remaining in a Holocene-like state. A key question for global sustainable development that emerges from this framework is how to secure social equity while respecting planetary boundaries. Recent efforts to quantify a ‘social foundation’ have drawn attention to the necessity of securing human wellbeing in a ‘safe and just operating space’. Yet realising the potential of this approach, we suggest, requires addressing two substantial governance challenges: how do we define and analyse success or failure in the integration of social equity in environmental governance systems?; and how do we support the emergence of those voices that are needed to make governance equitable? We argue that human rights offer a widely accepted normative basis for responding to both these questions. The body of rights- based practice offers an analytical framing and tools for development support at a time when there is an urgent need to engage with the structural problems in environmental governance. Through a rights-based approach, it becomes possible to identify and address the social relations and mechanisms that generate inequities, and which undermine progress in addressing the unsustainable use of planetary resources at multiple scales. A decade after the planetary boundaries framework first appeared, widespread exploration of the potential of a rights-based approach is overdue

REDD+, hype, hope and disappointment : The dynamics of expectations in conservation and development pilot projects

We explore the dynamics of expectations in international forest conservation and development programs, and the impacts and implications of (unfulfilled) expectations for actors involved. Early stages of new international conservation and development programs, often involving pilot projects designed to test intervention concepts at village level, are characterized by large amounts of resources and attention, along with high expectations of success. However, evidence shows that these early expectations are rarely fulfilled. Despite this repeated pattern and growing engagement with expectations in critical conservation and development literature, little is known about the dynamics of expectations in conservation and development pilot projects. We address this knowledge gap first by exploring concepts from the sociology of expectations. We then unpack expectations in a case study of REDD+ pilot projects in Tanzania, using extensive qualitative data reflecting the perspectives and experiences of a wide range of actors involved. Our study finds that expectations play a performative role, mobilizing actors and resources, despite uncertainty identified among policy-makers and practitioners. We also find that once raised, expectations are dynamic and continually mediated by actors and social contexts, which conflicts with attempts to ‘manage’ them. We argue therefore that a trade-off exists between fully piloting new initiatives and raising expectations. We also argue that failure to address this trade-off has implications beyond pilot project objectives and timelines, which are experienced most acutely by village communities. We argue for more critical engagement with expectations and the embedding of accountability for expectations in conservation and development practice. Our findings also challenge the discourse of ‘needing’ to pilot, which prioritizes awareness, impact and innovation without fully considering the potential negative impact of unfulfilled expectations

The role of learning in farmer-led innovation

CONTEXT: Farmer-led innovation brings farmers together with other stakeholders in a collaborative endeavour that recognises multiple forms of expertise. Critical engagement with mainstream models of agricultural science and technology (AST) development has drawn attention to the isolation of farmers as technology adopters within a compartmentalised model of AST development and dissemination. Academic, government and non-governmental actors and organisations are increasingly supporting facilitated processes in which farmers, scientists and engineers develop new knowledge, learning together about the nature of the problems being faced and the potential of different solution pathways. OBJECTIVE: Despite the centrality of learning to farmer-led innovation, its role has yet to be systematically explored. In response, this paper looks to understand the forms of learning and their contribution to farmer-led innovation during a three-year action-research project involving two groups of farmers from northern England and the Scottish Borders in the UK. METHODS: A researcher-facilitator convened a structured process of twenty meetings that together created opportunities for interaction, deliberation and re-framing of problems and solutions among groups of farmers, a university-based engineer, and wider stakeholders. Multiple qualitative methods were used to build understanding of the different farming contexts and to explore the issues the farmers wanted to work on. Meeting transcripts and fieldnotes were subject to thematic analysis, informed by the analytical framework of cognitive, normative and relational learning derived from the social learning literature. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Cognitive, normative and relational learning were found to be mutually interdependent and equally significant, building iteratively rather than linearly: the farmers and engineer assessed new information and reappraised existing situations; they did so informed by and informing a shift in understanding of their goals for new technology; and in so doing they relied on and developed the trust and confidence needed to acknowledge or challenge each other's perspectives. By orientating the group engagement process around the space to explore and challenge histories and contexts of AST, and by drawing on social learning principles to facilitate interaction between the different expertise of farmers and between farmers and engineers, learning emerged that interleaved technology co-design with incremental refinement of the shared norms and values embedded in the process itself. SIGNIFICANCE: A focus on learning helps deepen understanding of key mechanisms and processes that define and deliver innovation, and the findings suggest that priorities for farmer-led innovation process design should focus on modalities that open up spaces to negotiate both the purpose and products of innovation

Inclusive policies, exclusionary practices : unfolding the paradox of prolonged urban informality debates in urbanising Nepal

Social inclusion and poverty alleviation are central to the United Nations (UN) new urban agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially Goal 11 on sustainable cities and communities. In Nepal, the goal of the National Urban Agenda is to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, sustainable and smart to enhance their ability to provide decent jobs and adequate housing, infrastructure and services to the ever-growing urban population”. Against this backdrop, many international and national non-governmental organisations and the national federations of informal settlers in Nepal have been advocating for the rights of urban informal settlers to be included in the urban planning processes. In response, the Nepal government has formulated new policies to assess the “authenticity” of informal settlers and accelerate the informal to formal transition process. Drawing from the textual analysis of existing national policies, literature and media publications, in this paper, we document what (dis)connections and contradictions exist in the formal policies and interventions that the national government has designed for addressing urban informality issue and how they frame urban informality issues and the solutions to manage the same. Our analysis shows that although government policies are rhetorically inclusive and progressive, indicating a desire to resolve informality issues, policies issued by different ministries and departments are disconnected. We also find that the practices often contradict the policies, and attempts to secure transitions to formality are undermined by a failure to recognise the legitimate stake that informal settlers have in the process. We conclude by discussing how these contradictions and inconsistencies can potentially be redirected towards socially just urban transition and suggesting ways forward for addressing the protracted urban informality issue in Nepal

Innovating in context: social learning and agricultural innovation

Recognition of the complexity of challenges rooted in human-environment interactions has led to increased interest in methods that enable diverse stakeholders, from within and beyond the scientific establishment, to work together. Increasingly, agricultural innovation is understood in these terms, with calls for group learning processes that bring science and engineering stakeholders into contact with farmers and farmer knowledge. This perspective relates closely to social learning (SL) as a theory and approach in which cycles of knowledge sharing and joint action lead to the co-creation of knowledge, new or changed relationships, and changes in practice. While SL theory has been widely considered in literature concerned with natural resource management, the body of papers that link SL and agricultural innovation is surprisingly sparse. The papers included in the literature search presented here, identify a number of potential drivers and barriers to agricultural innovation emerging from SL processes. In particular, we identify the significance of: issue framing and agreement between actors about the role of the innovation; skills and capacity to do with learning as well as the use of the technologies; compatibility between existing practices and innovations; trust in innovations and other actors; and the facilitation of the process. Our paper shows there is a fundamental significance of SL to agricultural innovation, which can be operationalized by framing agricultural innovation as changes in understanding, practices and relationships. The use of SL as a design framework supports the emergence of agricultural innovations that bring equitable benefits, are sustainable and are innovated in context

Africa Adapt

Describes experience of: ENDA, FARA, ICPAC, IDSAfrica Adapt is an online/offline knowledge sharing platform that was designed to share local African knowledge and experience on climate change. It was set up after a scoping of partners, through a number of regional forums in Africa, to discuss the idea of a knowledge hub and to identify what was needed and who best could develop and run it. Phase 1 was launched in 2008 by IDS with partners ENDA, FARA and ICPAC. In 2011 there was an evaluation of what has worked and not worked and re-launch with IDS stepping back to a capacity support role and the partnership being devolved to lead partner ENDA to ensure implementation. Lead institution: ENDA, FARA, ICPAC and IDS Climate communications aims The communication aims of the project are fourfold: • To increase inclusion and raise visibility of African knowledge on climate change • To facilitate flows of information on climate change in Africa • To broker relationships between different communities of practice • To add value to the culture of how we share knowledge Communications/social learning characteristics: Africa Adapt is managing to achieve, in part what other web-based initiatives often fail to achieve, a good balance in terms of engagement and the potential for social learning. Right from the beginning during the initial scoping phase the project team was careful to assess needs and to identify what kind of knowledge sharing and engagement would be possible and relevant. It has made deliberate attempts to build up and strengthen the online presence and the offline presence. Online it provides a wealth of information presented in a number of different formats – for example film, web photo albums, online discussion groups, as well as thematic browsing of projects. Although its presentation of information requires the user to spend some time looking through the collection rather than sourcing information immediately, the counter balance is that this has been done to ensure that a full range of voices, types of knowledge and information are representative of a wide group of stakeholders. Offline the project has worked hard to resource knowledge sharing officers in country partner officers who have developed the offline engagement work. This includes activities, like “Meet and Greet” where staff set up fairly impromptu meetings to discuss particular issues or visit a particular village to share experiences. These events are then shared on the website by film It is felt that one of the reasons for this growing success is that there is a strong culture of reflection and learning within the project team itself and regular meetings and discussions on what Africa Adapt’s USP is and how it fits with the range of other climate change information and networking projects take place. This has helped to keep the focus and really look where engagement works and where it does not. This kind of project is expensive but knowing where you add value helps to justify the support. Audience: It was originally intended to speak to policy makers and others working in climate change adaptation in Africa and elsewhere. It considers that the audience that has responded the most to this format has been practitioners or those working one step away from communities. It is not so much of a recognised tool for policy makers. Getting research into use (how this case study does or does not contribute to that): Africa Adapt is an attempt at getting local and global climate change knowledge discussed more widely and that knowledge put in to practice. As part of the monitoring and evaluation of the approaches Africa Adapt has taken in getting research in to practice, they carried out interviews to assess where people in the network had seen real world behaviour change: “stories of change”. The stories of change help to act as supporting evidence and demonstrate a number of uses of material from the Africa Adapt website that communities have used as teaching aids or opportunities for learning. Evolution of the project (how has the project evolved or developed if known): The project has put in mechanisms to help learn what is working well – for example the stories of change process mentioned above. The phase one project evaluation also encouraged a re-think on how to integrate the online and offline activities. One outcome was a decision to take more time to have online discussions using DGroups to bring the physical network and communities of practice together virtually. This emphasis on trying to build up further engagement and learning is well on its ways to providing a good platform for increased social learning

Global Futures

Describes experience of: IFPRIGlobal Futures aims to improve the capacity of the CGIAR centres to evaluate and prioritise research investments, and to support the decision-making of international development partners and national policymakers by giving those who work in agricultural development the kinds of information they need to make the best decisions to support small farmers so they can boost their yields, increase their income, and develop a better understanding of how to adapt to climate change. Lead institution: IFPRI IFPRI’s mission focuses on identifying and analysing alternative international, national, and local policies in support of improved food security and nutrition, emphasizing low-income countries, poor people and the sound management of the natural resource base. Key areas of priority that support agriculture are; contributing to capacity strengthening of people and institutions in developing countries that conduct research on food, agriculture, and nutrition policies; and actively engaging in policy communications, making research results available to all those in a position to apply or use them, and carrying out dialogues with those users to link research and policy action. Climate communication aims: The communication aims of this project are to help policy makers better understand climate impacts through visual modelling and scenarios. Feedback from policy makers is shared with the modellers for new iterations. IFRI have a specific focus on modelling climate change impacts on agricultural crops and shape their scenarios around this. Different variables are introduced to the model like trade and openness. Communications/social learning characteristics: Global Futures is an amalgamation of a number of different tools and projects that has ambitions to reach out beyond researchers to policy makers and eventually to farmers. The initiative takes a number of climate modelling tools that have been developed by IFPRI and others and is experimenting how these tools can be combined to better engage with policy and practice. Tool 1 – IMPACT (International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade) a software based economic model that projects the future production, consumption, and trade of key agricultural commodities, and can assess the effects of climate change, water availability and other major trends. Started in the 1990’s looking at a few commodities across a few regions, it evolved to the current version which has 40 commodities across 115 national areas and 281 food production units. It is also being ported to a lighter web-based version. Tool 2 – D-SAT A tool developed by the University of Florida that models crop yields with respect to changed environmental conditions. This has been integrated/combined with the IMPACT tool to produce a wider set of available variables for modelling. Tool 3 – Food security CASE maps are interactive web based Climate, Agriculture, and Socio-Economic Maps that present IFPRI’s latest research on the future of food security, farming, and climate change to 2050. The principle idea behind Global Futures is to provide all the rights kinds of information to support small farmers so that they can boost their yields, increase incomes and build better lives. This is essentially a top down, information supply mechanism on a global scale which can be tailored (using the ICT tools) to regional areas. It is an example of a “push” project which has elements of “pull” by holding workshops and dialogues with policy makers, where data is presented and discussed in a regional context using visually appealing formats. While there have been good attempts at bringing findings and dialogue to farmer communities it is not clear that the datasets or research agenda has been built through an assessment of farmer’s needs and their adaptation to difficult environments. Although this project is engaging at national policy level and has aspirations to reach community level, it does not demonstrate what we are calling “triple loop learning”. Audience: Global Futures states that that it aims to benefit small farmers, providing them with information so that they can make better decisions to boost yields and improve livelihoods (the assumption here is that increased yields automatically assume improved livelihoods). There is also a research and policy audience as part of the chain of support for farmers and it appears that policy makers, rather than farmers, are currently the main target. The theory of change assumes there will be spill-down from the national level to farmers. IFPRI have aspirations to target farmers more directly but it is not clear how the farmers will receive this information as much of it is presented through an online platform and would need some interpretation for context and use of local language. Getting research into use (how this case study does or does not contribute to that): Global Futures represents a good example of one of the key challenges faced by CGIAR centres and CCAFS. It is a challenge faced by similarly large, sophisticated, and well- resourced scientific/technical institutions. Researching, gathering and collating sophisticated & comparative datasets that can stand up to rigorous comparison the world over can end up by providing “lowest common denominator” information at the local level because it lacks context, and no easily accessible means of interpreting the data. The scenarios workshops however are an encouraging way to bring this information, more visually, in to a dialogue setting. The challenge is how to bring this to the local level (at scale) and create learning loops that impact the model itself by building in local learning and context. Evolution of the project (how has the project evolved or developed if known): IFPRI has evolved these tools from focusing more on climate change researchers (IMPACT) to also engage more with policy makers (CASE maps). The Global Futures initiative has held a number of workshops in East Africa testing out a participatory “scenarios building” exercise which maps out different futures scenarios based on different start conditions e.g. good transport/bad transport, open markets/protected markets to allow more nuanced discussion based on numbers that can be made visual for easier interpretation e.g. what would a 10% increase in trade barriers due to farmer costs and hence consumer prices? What would be resultant impacts on demand taking in to account modelled climate change impacts

Communicating Carbon

Describes experiences of: ICRAF, CCAFSCommunicating Carbon is a workshop approach which brought together carbon project practitioners who are already working closely with farmers to discuss how to better communicate the concept, risks, and benefits of carbon initiatives aimed at smallholders – based around the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC). These practitioners act as “brokers” between carbon buyers and farmers who may have the means to plant more trees or sequester more carbon in the soil to help offset emissions. Developing better communication tools and approaches is a way to ensure FPIC in carbon projects. Institution: World Agroforestry Centre, CCAFS (led) The World Agroforestry Centre works towards more productive, diversified, integrated and intensified trees and agroforestry systems that provide livelihood and environmental benefits. Climate communication aims: The communication aims of workshop were to pool knowledge of practitioners on communication approaches to carbon sequestration and to promote social learning between practitioners so as they can improve their communication and learning approaches with farmers. Communications/social learning characteristics: The workshop was an interactive discussion of best approaches to improving communication on the concept and issues around carbon initiatives aimed at smallholders. The process focused on the principle of FPIC of the smallholders and exchanged ideas, tools, and approaches on how to raise awareness of smallholders on sequestration and carbon credit schemes. The workshop approach demonstrates an element of social learning by refining tools and approaches collectively and developing a toolkit as a shared output. The resulting policy brief/toolkit, although widely shared through the CCAFS website, has not yet provided the basis for repeat discussion and feedback that would lead to a more truly representative looped learning model i.e. have practitioners continued to learn together on the effectiveness of what is laid out in the workshop toolkit after the workshop testing out with communities what has worked best in a particular context. In a repeat exercise could communities be involved in agenda setting for these higher level processes? At this stage it looks like the workshop is a one off rather than a systematic approach to improving communication on this topic but there is interesting potential for this to change if there is further interest within CGIAR and elsewhere. Audience: The direct audience at the workshop was mainly practitioners interested in better communicating issues of carbon sequestration and carbon offset initiatives more effectively with smallholders. Getting research into use (how this case study does or does not contribute to that): This is more about getting communication tools and approaches discussed and their effectiveness analysed. The second logical stage would be to take this toolkit and work with communities to better understand if it is the right approach. Evolution of the project (how has the project evolved or developed if known): All participants have been working in East Africa, and are good contacts of CCAFS. There are lots of projects coming up that focus on carbon markets (particularly in Kenya) and not much has been done on communicating carbon markets at grass roots level – hence CCAFS saw an opportunity for a workshop to foster learning on communicating carbon markets. Developing a successful looped learning model using more of this methodology could be something that CCAFS can facilitate