25 November 2015-27 January 2016 (E10315) | Closed
Instructors: Ruth Allen and Gretchen Alther
What is “resilience” and why is it such a popular term? Is it a repackaging of old approaches or is it a kind of new systems thinking? Frequently described as the intersection among climate change adaptation, poverty alleviation, and disaster risk reduction, resilience as a framework aims to buttress vulnerable communities in the face of actual or possible shocks without weakening the prospects of long-term development. Resilience is relevant to humanitarian action and human development to the extent that it is used to describe real-life dynamics that impact people’s and communities’ sensitivity to and recovery from natural and man-made crises.
This course examines the debate around resilience and where it intersects with the humanitarian aid and development sectors. It questions the use of resilience as an organizing principle for considering trade-offs and making decisions. The course considers local adaptive capacity and protection strategies, and questions the role and impact of aid organizations in supporting local agency. The course encourages participants to note connections and gaps between current understandings of resilience and rights-based approaches.
This e-learning course is intended for staff members of local, national, and international humanitarian and development organizations who are interested in exploring and discussing various concepts of resilience and their impact on humanitarian action and local communities. Course examples will largely focus on disaster and conflict, but may be of interest to those concerned with broader definitions of vulnerability and risk. The course is intended to generate discussion. Participants will have the opportunity to read and discuss analyses and case studies related to resilience, and to develop a framework for resilience applicable to their own contexts. Participants completing the course will have gained broad understanding of resilience as a framework within humanitarian action, from a rights-based perspective.