Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
and
lack of scale up of this industry which are: a) poor access to business services; b) inefficient supply chain; c) entrenched traditional
beliefs that since women are caretakers of ducks, it is just an adjunct household chore and not a viable enterprise; and d) chronic
natural disasters and climate variability. Photo: Janice Ian Manlutac/2015
A Companion Guide
to Resilience
Practical guidance for people designing and implementing programmes
that aim to increase the resilience of people living in poverty
Lead authors: Steve Jennings & Janice Ian Manlutac
November 2015
Contents
1 About this Companion 1
2 Vision 3
3 Design 11
4 Implementation 21
5 Measuring Resilience 28
6 Learning 32
1 ABOUT THIS
COMPANION
1.1 Introduction
escalating inequality.
Resilience building is increasingly seen as a counter to these drivers of
vulnerability. Fortunately, Oxfam and partners in Asia have a rich history of
implementing approaches towards resilience that can be built upon to become
more effective.
VISION
Oxfams Vision
Theory of
change
MONITORING
& EVALUATION
Indicators for
resilience
LEARNING
DESIGN
Planning
for learning
The Feedback
Loop
The Resilience
Checklist
Cross-cutting
issues
IMPLEMENT
Case Studies
Partnerships
and Donors
2 VISION
Establishing the vision what you want to achieve is a critical
first step in any sort of programming. In practical terms, this means
building on the strategic decisions that have been made by Oxfam
in Asia so that your own work aligns with the broader work in the
region whilst reflecting your own context. This section helps to explain
what Oxfam in Asia means by resilience, how it is prioritised, and
introduces a Theory of Change to help you develop the goals for your
own work.
LOW RESILIENCE:
INCREASED RESILIENCE:
A RESILIENT COMMUNITY:
happens
of poverty)
Shock
Shock
Shock
time
time
time
include sea-level rise, saline intrusion into fresh water sources, changing seasonality and
rainfall patterns, increasing temperatures, and increasing frequency and intensity of many
types of extreme weather events. All of these changes undermine peoples livelihoods and
put their lives at increased risk.
Asia consistently has the highest number of natural disasters and the highest number of
disaster affected people of any region in the world. Moreover, the number of disasters has
risen at an alarming rate over recent decades.
Asia is urbanising at a faster rate than any other region. This rapid transformation also
represents a concentration of risk even as it also presents opportunities.
All of these things mean that vulnerability in Asia is high and rising, and we need to work in
ways that secure development gains in the face of the rising risks and uncertainties.
markets they depend upon to withstand climate change and natural disasters is an important
contribution to resilience. See Case Study 1.
Water Variable rainfall, drought and floods as well as access to water for human
consumption and productive use are all drivers of vulnerability in Asia. We can build on our
WASH expertise in emergencies, to encourage more sustainable management and equitable
supply of water, including community-based management, social enterprise, and influencing
governments and the private sector.
CASE STUDY 1:
Climate change adaptation in smallholder agricultureThailand
Yasothorn Province in north-east Thailand is part of the Weeping Plain, where dry
conditions make it suitable for growing the world-famous fragrant jasmine rice. Smallholders,
whose livelihoods depend on jasmine rice production, are threatened by the increasing
frequency and severity of droughts.
The project provided education and training on climate change. Farmers developed
their own water management systems supported by loans of up to $880, to assist with
construction of on-farm water management systems. They also saw diversification of crops
as a key way of combatting increasing climate risk.
After harvest, all of the 57 participating households were more food-secure than they were
at the outset of the programme. Rice production declined less than in farms that did not
take part in the project. Farmers, especially women, planted fruits and vegetables and the
produce not consumed by their households was sold at local markets, earning them around
5001,500 baht (US$ 1540) a week. More than 90 different types of plant were grown
across the project area.
Jasmine Rice in the Weeping Plain: Adapting Rice Farming to Climate Change in
Northeast Thailand. Oxfam Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation
Case Study
CASE STUDY 2:
Urban resilienceIndonesia
This project is looking to create an innovative technological solution to enable easy access
to trade and financial support in urban Jakarta and South Sulawesi. It aims to reach 1,500
households living in disaster prone areas and 30 merchants who will be able to offer mobile
money transactions. It will enable poor urban communities to trade, access disaster relief,
and receive cash transfers even if they do not have bank accounts.
Up to now, the uptake of mobile money transactions has been hampered by banks request
that traders should open bank accounts to operate the electronic data capture machines.
The project will promote the adoption of electronic pre-paid solutions, particularly mobile and
low cost money transactions between disaster-prone urban people and local merchants and
government agencies.
Activities will target disaster relief cash distribution and social security payments. Training
on electronic payments will improve the understanding of banks, telecommunication
companies, government agencies and civil society organisations. Government agencies will
then open CMS bank accounts, and arrange pre-paid e-money and e-cash transfers. The
e-transfers are rapid, relatively robust to corruption and will strengthen communities ability
to respond and adapt to disasters and hardship with a potential for services beyond relief,
e.g. provision of health subsidies, and savings services, etc.
Gates Foundation Grand Challenge Concept Note, Oxfam, May 2015
What is a Theory
of Change?
A Theory of Change is a
description of the types of
changes you need to bring
about to reach your goal
in this case increased
resilience. Developing a
Theory of Change is useful
for thinking about how
change happens, and is also
increasingly demanded by
donors.
this diagram.
Build capacities of
vulnerable people
and of institutions
Generate
evidence,
learn and
communicate
Convene
and influence
Assess and
address risk
Aim to achieve
change at scale
Outcomes
of our
work in
communities
Forward thinking
and flexible planning
Reduce global
GHG emissions
Responsiveness
towards citizens rights
Advance
gender justice
Our
vision
Women, men and
children are less
affected by shocks,
stresses and
uncertainty, thrive in
the face of them and
systemic changes
mean fewer people
are exposed and
vulnerable
Engage in a public
discourse on resilience
The Theory of Change includes Oxfams vision for resilience in Asia, that Women, men and
children are less affected by shocks, stresses and uncertainty, thrive in the face of them,
and systemic changes mean that fewer people are exposed and vulnerable. The vision for
a project or programme will usually be more specific, including the target communities, the
main shocks, stresses and uncertainty they face, and the particular aspects of resilience
that the project or programme will attempt to build. However, it should still contain the
main ideas in the vision: reducing the impact of shocks and stresses; enabling people to
adapt to change; including transformative change so that people are no longer exposed or
vulnerable, based on social empowerment and with womens rights at its heart.
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2.6 Outcomes
Outcomes
of our
work in
communities
Generate
evidence,
learn and
communicate
Convene
and influence
Assess and
address risk
Aim to achieve
change at scale
Advance
gender justice
The second part of the Theory of Change concerns how Oxfam and partners will
work to achieve the changes that we want to see in the lives of vulnerable people.
These should be used as pointers to the general type of outputs you should
consider, but you would have to turn them into specific deliverables in project
proposal. These are:
building the capacity of others,
prioritising gender justice,
designing and implementing our work to achieve change at scale,
convening and influencing,
generating evidence, learning and communicating, and
basing projects on an assessment of risk.
Reduce global
GHG emissions
Responsiveness
towards citizens rights
Engage in a public
discourse on resilience
The bottom bloc in the theory of change diagram is what Oxfam and allies will
encourage others to do. This recognises that governments and business have a
key role in supporting resilience, for example by implementing a social protection
scheme, or a business reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Government and
business can equally undermine resilience: damaging the natural environment
or under-investment in high-risk areas. Oxfam and our allies therefore have
three roles: (a) encouraging government and business to do the right things, (b)
collaborating with them to develop and implement solutions, and (c) holding them
to account for practices that undermine the resilience of poor people. Each of these
roles are about leveraging a bigger impact for our work than can be achieved by
working with communities alone.
The changes that we work for in government and business will ultimately increase
the resilience of poor people. A project will usually have at least one of these
elements, whereas a broader programme of work will cover several or all of them.
13
Key areas for Oxfam and allies to work with business and government include:
Forward thinking and flexible planning: Planning and managing processes and
policy need to be increasingly flexible, forward-looking and able to adapt to the
unexpected. Change will happen, therefore business and governments need to be
prepared, and able to adapt.
Action on global climate change: Climate change threatens to undermine
development and erode the resilience of millions across Asia. We must continue
to ensure the success of international negotiations to reduce green house gas
emissions, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Oxfam
along with many others is attempting to influence this process to reach an effective,
equitable agreement. Ensuring that work on resilience supports those efforts is
therefore critical. That might involve working directly on global advocacy initiatives,
supporting the national government on its role in the negotiations, or providing case
studies to be used in campaigning activities.
Responsiveness to citizens rights: As with all of Oxfams work, we should take
a rights based approach to resilience programming. In the context of resilience,
this means supporting vulnerable communities to articulate and exercise their
rights. It also means identifying opportunities to influence key policies that affect
the resilience of vulnerable people (e.g., policy on social protection, disaster
management or use rights to natural resources), and enabling their voices to be
heard in debates (Case Study 3) and the development and implementation of
solutions.
Engaging in public discourse on resilience: Risk is not distributed evenly in
society, with poor people being more at risk from most types of shock and stress.
A public discourse allows society to discuss the spread of risk, and challenge the
increasing inequality that is widening the gap between the rich and the poor.
CASE STUDY 3:
Active Citizenship influencing gender and land rights in Sri Lanka
The aim of the active citizenship programme in Sri Lanka was to increase
understanding about land related issues affecting livelihoods, and to join
communities and other partners together to advocate for land and gender rights.
Oxfam built capacity with partners through advocacy trainings and increasing
understanding on land related issues. Partners were linked into the network, and
discussions were held both individually and collectively. The result was increased
understanding of land issues, with 93 applications made to the Land Reform
commission, 43 of which were processed with minimum cost. 273 families, with
support from one of the network partners in Addalachchenai, were able to get back
their land, which had been encroached upon by the military.
The main elements of the project that made it successful were improved
understanding of land issues including legal background, working with local
networks and national organisations and systematic and regular follow up.
Case Study for WIN Workshop: Active Citizenship, Sri Lanka (Oxfam
Australia, 2015)
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3 DESIGN
15
16
17
The checklists do not include any requirements for developing project inputs, for the simple
reason that these are wholly dependent on the specific outputs you choose, and so are not
specific to resilience.
Element 7: Assessing and addressing risk. The project design is informed by analysis of shocks,
stresses and uncertainty (including natural disasters as well as climate change, conflict, environmental
degradation, etc) with the participation of vulnerable communities and with specific attention to women.
Element 8: Evidence and learning. There are dedicated resources within the project (people, money)
to generate evidence, learn and communicate from the project.
Element 9: Convening and influencing. Oxfam and partners convene people, organisations and
businesses that have the resources and influence to increase the resilience of vulnerable people (bring
about systemic change).
Element 10: Achieving change at scale. The project has explicit and credible mechanisms that will
allow the projectif successfulto go to scale.
Element 11: Gender Justice. All aspects of the work contain gender-specific plans and activities to
support womens needs and rights and participation and leadership in decision making, based on a
gendered analysis.
Element 12: Work long term. The work is long-term: a minimum of three years and ideally part of a
longer programme, remaining responsive to communities needs and rights as they evolve over time.
18
How we organise
ourselves
Additional Elements
Element 13: Action on global climate change. Does the work contribute to Oxfams influencing work
on climate change, without which resilience will be inevitably undermined?
Element 14: Forward thinking and flexible planning. Climate change means that decision-makers
have to be able to incorporate uncertainty and future shocks and stresses into their plans and budgets.
Does the work build the capacity of decision makers to do this?
Element 15: Public discourse on resilience. Does the work help to engage in a public discourse on
resilience?
Element 16: Responsiveness to citizens rights. As with all of Oxfams work, we should take a
rights based approach to resilience programming. In the context of resilience, this means encouraging
governments and business to support and not undermine the ability of vulnerable people to increase
their resilience.
Element 17: Humanitarian, influencing, and development staff collaborating. Vulnerable people
experience poverty in all its aspects, not the separate ones by which we organise our thinking. Creating
synergies between staff with different skills and approaches in project and programme design and
implementation is likely to lead to new and more joined up approaches to resilience.
Element 18: Thematic focus. The focus of our resilience work will be on improving the quality of
existing programme areas of smallholder agriculture (including enterprise and value chains) and water;
and two areas for innovation, namely urban resilience and resilience and natural resource management2.
2 Whereas any project is likely to cover only one of these thematic areas, with a country programme we would normally
expect a focus on one current area (agriculture or water) and one area of innovation (urban or natural resource
management).
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20
5. Exercising rights
Community organisation is key to resilience, whether it is community based disaster management
groups or farmers cooperatives. Make sure that women participate, and are involved in decisionmaking.
Supporting existing grassroots organisations to increase their capacity and to coordinate better with
each other can have a significant role in conflict-affected contexts (e.g., Within and Without the State).
6. Restoring the natural resource base
Discuss with communities what natural resources they depend on and whether they are degraded
now.
Explore whether there are any markets for non-timber forest products (e.g., bamboo, rattan,
or bulrush mats) that could support the communities livelihoods whilst ensuring the sustainable
management.
Ownership and use rights often prevent communities accessing what they need to build resilient lives.
Work with policy colleagues and allies to develop plans on agrarian reform or more local use rights.
CASE STUDY 4:
Linking up humanitarian and development thinkingAfghanistan
Afghanistan is recovering from decades of conflict and political turmoil. Livelihood instability
affects the majority of Afghanistans poor, rural households, exposing them to daily risks
and limiting their prospects. Governmental provision of social protection is weak, and the
majority of social protection efforts rest with NGOs.
To build resilience to this instability, the social protection programme used strategies from
both humanitarian aid and development projects. Cash transfers are often used as a
component of a humanitarian response, as a rapid solution to crisis. Cash transfers were
made to 425 households, with direct supervision from Oxfam. Grain banks were set up with
a longer-term view: following the logic that community control would be essential to ensuring
a sustainable, village-based solution to critical food shortages.
In this project, Oxfam successfully targeted the most vulnerable populations in each district,
as women were more likely to report being a beneficiary than men. Cash transfers were
reported to be mainly used for buying food, for medical expenses or to pay off debt. These
three uses all increase financial resiliencelimiting the pressure of everyday or emergency
costs. Grain banks were also used as a safety net; a female participant said, if we saw that
our children are hungry and we didnt have anything, we would have to borrow to feed our
children. Enabling people to feed their families without going into debt or selling off assets
increases their resilience in the future.
Social Protection Study in Afghanistan. Final report. January 25, 2015. Sayara
Research.
GROW: Climate change is a key and growing source of shocks through its
impacts on food production and weather systems. Climate change also creates
Oxfams National
elements that are directly related to the GROW campaign: ensuring that work
on resilience supports global campaigning on climate change; responsiveness
to citizens rights (which will include many issues relevant to GROW, such as
the right to food, agrarian reform, etc); and engaging in public discourse on
resilience.
Inequality is a major driver of vulnerability. Wealth is not distributed equally,
Influencing Guidelines
describes the basic approach
of WIN, and includes
some useful guidelines
for influencing in different
contexts.
3.4.3 Gender
As described above, gender justice is a central part of Oxfams approach to any
area of programming. To give some examples of what this might mean in practice
(and see Case Study 5):
Assess and address risk: ensuring that the assessment of shocks, stresses
and uncertainty (including natural disasters as well as climate change, conflict,
environmental degradation, etc) is done with the participation of women, and
that the specific needs of and opportunities for women that are identified in the
assessment are for women are addressed in the project design.
Exercising rights: from a gender perspective, this means involving and
empowering vulnerable women as agents of change. In many contexts, an
important part of this will be increasing the participation of women in decisionmaking positions and enhancing their leadership capacities.
Assets, income, and food security: ensuring that livelihoods opportunities are
appropriate for women, given their burden of work in the household, and enhancing
womens control on income and assets.
physically accessible to
to many types of disaster, and are often excluded from decision-making, the project
may decide to have a specific focus on preparedness for women. Projects may
according to the SPHERE Standards on gender, and ensure that women participate
CASE STUDY 5:
Putting women at the centre of community based disaster risk
reductionBangladesh
The Ree-Call project sought to develop replicable models of resilient community
through strengthening the livelihoods of communities and developing community
leadership. It developed community-based organisations (CBOs), through which
disaster risk reduction efforts were implemented.
Gender justice was addressed through promoting womens leadership, including
adolescent girls, empowering elders to oppose child marriages in the community,
and making sure that business hubs and enterprise initiatives are directed towards
women. The project established seed and food banks, promoted insurance for flood
damage, trainings on WASH and technology adoption, increased the strength of
dwellings to resist hazards, and developed understanding of disaster risk. Women
lead community activities to reduce disaster risk, therefore womens positions were
strengthened not only in traditional areas relating to women such as child marriage
or gender based violence, but in all aspects of resilience that the communities
addressed.
Ree-Call increased communities ability to adapt to and withstand shocks. In
Bangladesh flood risk is high and therefore the increased security of peoples
homes was an important outcome. Since the Ree-Call project there have been no
child marriages in the communities. The project identified gender violence as a
shock to which communities need to build resilience; and additionally gender equity
in all activities increased the communities resilience.
Review of REE-CALL Project: In Quest of Promoting a Community Resilience
Framework. Mid-term Evaluation Report, January 2015.
Many countries in the Asia region suffer from violent conflict or its aftermath,
Transformation.
4 IMPLEMENTATION
Asia contains an enormous diversity of contexts, and what works
in one place may not work in another. That means that simple
instructions on implementing projects and programmes will not be
very helpful. Instead, a number of case studies are provided which
should provide helpful insights for whatever type of project youre
working on. The section also considers what sort of partners and
donors might be most appropriate for resilience.
4.1 Introduction
Implementing projects and programmes that seek to increase the resilience
of vulnerable people should be implemented in line with Oxfams Programme
Standards, in the same way as any other work.
The following short case studies illustrate some of the practical ways that people
have delivered each of the outcomes in the theory of change. Using these case
studies as inspiration, seeing how others have approached the same challenges
you face, and noticing how they address the elements of the Theory of Change is
a good first step for implementing your own projects. Key questions are included to
guide your thoughts for each of the six outcomes.
26
Innovation
Access to information
Exercising rights
27
CASE STUDY 6:
Increased Access to Contingency Resources and Support Ben Tre, Vietnam
Communities in the Red River Delta and the Mekong River Delta are extremely vulnerable
to the impacts of climate change. The Mekong Delta in Vietnam is facing severe drought and
salinity, the worst in several decades. This project set out to address four issues: 1) low adaptive
capacity because of limited knowledge of climate change; 2) threats to livelihoods; 3) degrading
natural resources and ecosystem services that are vulnerable to climate change; 4) existing
climate change adaptation practice and policies do not reflect local challenges.
The strategy was to partner with a local NGO that had experience in community development,
and to engage with communities, especially women and marginalised groups, in order that
the project should be locally embedded and driven by the most vulnerable groups. Therefore,
gender sensitive disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation plans were developed in
a community-based process. Awareness raising materials were developed and disseminated.
Local emergency response teams were provided with skills training, and an early warning
communication system was developed. WASH learnings and messages on sanitation and
hygiene were disseminated and participatory climate change action plans were developed and
disseminated.
This project increased access to locally developed informationon climate adaptation, water
issues and climate risks. Adaptation plans and a local early warning communication system
increased the resilience of the community to climate-related shocks. These outcomes were even
resilient in themselves, as they were developed locally, with input from women and the most
vulnerable.
Building resilience to disaster and climate risks of men and women in Ben Tre province,
Vietnam (various project documents, 2013-14)
CASE STUDY 7:
Increased Access to Contingency Resources and Support Assam, India
Assam is a highly disaster prone region, due to deforestation, erosion, highly variable monsoon
regime and intense land use pressure. Assam has suffered major floods with increasing
frequency, most recently in 2004, 2007, 2011 and 2012.
The disaster risk reduction programme in Assam, India, focused on improving community
preparedness; increasing access to clean water and sanitation which is robust to flooding;
improving food security and livelihoods including agricultural production and access to
government schemes; and strong community networks to influence government policies. The
project actively targets the most vulnerable sectors of society, including scheduled tribes,
Muslims, women, flood affected communities, and socially excluded castes.
People in the target communities developed community action plans to influence government
actors. Communities were trained in first aid and emergency response and raised infrastructure
was built, including raised toilets, hand pumps and grain stores. Households were supported to
grow vegetables in kitchen gardens, and also given and trained in growing flood tolerant, high
yield seeds. Public health promotion increased the knowledge of important principles to reduce
disease during flooding.
Assam DRR Programme 2011-2014. Presentation to the National Humanitarian Hub,
January 2014.
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CASE STUDY 8:
Increased assets for resilience Western Nepal
Amongst the aims of this project was to enable adaptation to climate change in seven
communities in Dadeldhura district, Western Nepal. The project focused mainly on increasing
natural assets by providing high-yielding and drought tolerant varieties of cereal crops;
introducing vegetable seeds to encourage crop diversification; and creating water conservation
schemes.
The project improved access to contingency resources and support, and increased assets and
food security that are under threat from climate change. Comparison between intervention
communities and comparison groups that werent part of the project showed that the project
resulted in households having higher livelihood viability, improved dietary diversity, increased
crop portfolio and significantly increased innovation. The project was effective in targeting
female-headed households and people living in more remote areas.
Climate Change Adaptation and Advocacy Project, Nepal 2012-13.
CASE STUDY 9:
Innovation for resilience Thailand
Yasothorn Province in north-east Thailand is part of the Weeping Plain, where dry conditions
make it suitable for growing the world-famous fragrant jasmine rice. Smallholders, whose
livelihoods depend on jasmine rice production, are threatened by increasing frequency and
severity of droughts.
In the same project described in earlier (Case Study 1), farmers innovated to adapt to climate
change. They innovated by developing their own water management systems supported by
loans of up to US$880, and by diversifying their crops as a key way of combatting increasing
climate risk.
For example, Manoon Phupa, a farmer who took part in the project, designed his own windmill
pump from recycled billboard cut-outs to drain and irrigate water from a new well that Oxfam
helped to build. The well, in addition to his existing pond, was used to irrigate his paddy fields
during prolonged dry spells.
Jasmine Rice in the Weeping Plain: Adapting Rice Farming to Climate Change in
Northeast Thailand. Oxfam Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation Case
Study (2009).
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32
5 MEASURING
RESILIENCE
We need to know whether our work is having a positive impact on
the communities we work with, for our own curiosity and learning,
to improve our impact, and to be accountable to stakeholders. This
section introduces the indicators that are appropriate to measuring
resilience, which can be used in project planning, monitoring and
evaluation.
34
Potential indicators3
Innovation fostered
Access to knowledge
and information increased
Increased ability to
exercise their rights
Soil quality
Access to clean water
Access to irrigation
Area of habitat restored
Perceived change in forest quality
Access to communal natural resources
3 The indicators used are partly based on the Effectiveness Review methodology for Resilience, adapted to reflect the more holistic and dynamic approach to resilience
proposed for Asia. Effectiveness Reviews were developed by OGB but are increasingly being used by other affiliates.
36
37
38
6 LEARNING
Learning is critical to all development and humanitarian work. This
section describes the need to resource and plan learning properly
within resilience projects and wider programmes of work. It also
introduces a feedback loop for resilience practitioners.
39
40
OXFAM
Oxfam is an international confederation of 17 organizations networked together
in 92 countries, as part of a global movement for change, to build a future free
from the injustice of poverty:
Oxfam America (www.oxfamamerica.org)
Oxfam Australia (www.oxfam.org.au)
Oxfam-in-Belgium (www.oxfamsol.be)
Oxfam Canada (www.oxfam.ca)
Oxfam France (www.oxfamfrance.org)
Oxfam Germany (www.oxfam.de)
Oxfam GB (www.oxfam.org.uk)
Oxfam Hong Kong (www.oxfam.org.hk)
Oxfam India (www.oxfamindia.org)
Intermn Oxfam (Spain) (www.intermonoxfam.org)
Oxfam Ireland (www.oxfamireland.org)
Oxfam Italy (www.oxfamitalia.org)
Oxfam Japan (www.oxfam.jp)
Oxfam Mexico (www.oxfammexico.org)
Oxfam New Zealand (www.oxfam.org.nz)
Oxfam Novib (Netherlands) (www.oxfamnovib.nl)
Oxfam Qubec (www.oxfam.qc.ca)
Please write to any of the agencies for further information, or visit
www.oxfam.org.
www.oxfam.org
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