What Does it Mean to be Resilient (Part 2) - Community Organization and Connectivity

In the first part of our series on what it means to be resilient, we focussed on the health and knowledge of the community. In part 2, we’ll look at how a community is organized and how well it is connected to surrounding communities, within the region and globally. As before, we use the SDGs to provide a frame of reference for the type of actions that can be undertaken at the community level to improve resilience and adaptation to the ever changing world.

What does it mean for a community to be ‘organized’? In this framework we take organized to mean governance and rule of law. SDG Goal 11 focuses on sustainable cities (and communities). Why? Because 95% of urban expansion in the next decades will take place in developing countries, and the Pacific is no exception. Urban areas account for 60-80% of energy consumption, while rapid urbanization puts undue pressure on freshwater supplies, on public health and the general living environment. In order to be resilient in the face of vulnerabilities and shocks such as cyclones, drought or epidemics, communities need to ensure access to safe housing.

What Does it Mean to be Resilient (Part 1) - Knowledge and Health

What does it mean to be resilient? Our parent publication, Theory in Practice, published an article recently which looked at definitions of resilience. Most were from the point of view of donors and development organizations, but the IFRC had a definition that had built upon the views and perceptions of communities worldwide. It was a breath of fresh air and we thought it would be a great place to begin to help us break down just what resilience means for communities, and what communities and local governments can do to increase their resilience to any number of shocks: climate change, disaster, health epidemics and food insecurity, to name but a few.

An MDG Recap: What Can We Learn from Where We Stumbled?

This site aims to be a resource on risk management and community resilience issues in the framework of the SDGs. But in order to understand just what needs to happen to effectively manage risk and increase resilience in the Pacific, it is important to learn from our track record on the MDGs. There were some positives, there were plenty of disappointing outcomes, and more than enough analysis of MDG results in the Pacific from which to learn in order to take steps forward in the face of climate change and increasing insecurities on a large number of issues.

Where to begin? There were 8 MDGs (compared to the 17 SDGs) and we could go through the results for each one individually. However, that has already been done (and done well, in a report by Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. Read the full report here). Instead, we look to themes emerging from the report to help us understand why there has been failure to increase community resilience in the Pacific, and to better understand the risks that need to be ‘managed’ in order for sustainable development to actually happen.

The GCF: Catalyst for Adaptation or Business as Usual?

Everyone has questions about the Green Climate Fund. For some, it has been presented as the financial cure-all for developing countries and those most vulnerable to climate change. For others, it is just one more bureaucratic trust fund that will put international and donor interests first and developing country interests a distant second. What is interesting about the GCF is that it has received far more attention than any other development trust fund ever has, and is quite polarizing. Politics as usual, but for Pacific island governments and citizens, it is important to have a good understanding of what to expect from the Fund.

What differentiates the GCF from other climate change trust funds such as the Global Environment Facility is that it specifically reserves 50% of its funding for least developed countries (LDCs), small island states (SIDS) and Africa. It also ensures equal funding for adaptation and mitigation. The GCF was launched in 2015 to much fanfare and great expectations that the most vulnerable would be prioritized.

Capacity Building for Climate Change Adaptation

Understanding the Paris Agreement in the Pacific, Part 4

Our fourth and final installment of the Paris Agreement ‘explained’ in the Pacific context examines the focus on capacity building. Given that the agreement puts emphasis on local government and civil society in Paris Agreement implementation, it is unsurprising that capacity building gets its own mention. While capacity building is referenced throughout the document, it has specific mention in Article 11: “Capacity building should be country-driven, based on and responsive to national needs and foster country ownership, including at national, subnational and local levels.”

This is important because the sustainability of climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives needs to be based on local knowledge, particularly in countries like the Pacific where geography limits the quantity and type of interventions which can be undertaken, and the frequency with which outside expertise can be reasonably accessed. Which turns our attention to ‘capacity building for what’ exactly?

What is Damage and Loss in Terms of Climate Change?

Understanding the Paris Agreement in the Pacific, Part 3 

What is ‘damage and loss’? It was a quite contentious component of the negotiations during COP21 in Paris, largely because it apportions blame for the impacts of climate change on the biggest polluters - those which are essentially causing sea level rise and changes to the climate that see more intensive and frequent storms and droughts that impact the poorest nations the hardest. For example, it is no secret that the current El Nino, which is causing massive drought across the Pacific, south East Asia and much of Africa, is the strongest on record in large part due to climate change. Significant and perhaps irreparable damage to crops and agricultural land is taking place - losses which will impact the livelihoods and economies of those affected to the point that some communities may need to migrate for seasonal work or entirely and find new places to live, meaning they lose not only their livelihoods but also their homes and land - things they are unlikely to be compensated for.  

It makes sense in theory that climate victims should be compensated - this is particularly relevant in the Pacific Islands where entire communities and even countries are at risk of survival and continued existence. Climate change is having drastic impacts through no fault of Pacific Islanders - who contributed a stunning 0.02% of Greenhouse Gas emissions up to 2010 - and many risk losing everything and should definitely compensated for it.  

Adaptation Planning: The Role of Government and Communities

Understanding the Paris Agreement in the Pacific, Part 2

In part 1 of this series, we discussed the importance of the recognition of the role of local government in the fight against climate change in the Paris Agreement. Not only was this recognition groundbreaking, it is absolutely critical for the effective implementation of climate adaptation activities. While national policies and strategies on adaptation provide a framework for action and allocate financing, the majority of activities take place at the local level on a case by case basis.

What is important about the Paris Agreement is that it is explicit about what needs to take place in order for adaptation to actually work. It notes that adaptation should be ‘country-driven, gender responsive, participatory and fully transparent,’ while ensuring the needs of ‘vulnerable groups, communities and ecosystems’ based on science and local knowledge. This last bit is integral - scientific responses are important but the Agreement recognizes that communities have local wisdom and practices that have served them well in the past and grounding current a future adaptation on this knowledge will increase the resilience of communities because the processes will be something that they inherently understand and accept, versus foreign scientific methods which don’t always mesh with local culture and capacities to sustain such processes.