1. Measuring development process resilience: A test from northern Kenya
Lance W. Robinson, Jonathan Davies, Polly J. Ericksen and Simon Mugatha
IFPRI 2020 Policy Consultation and Conference, Side Event on Measuring and Evaluating Resilience in Drylands of East Africa, Addis Ababa, May 2014

2. Social-Ecological Resilience
“The capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks.”
(Walker et al., 2004, p. 5).
Not necessarily desirable.
(e.g., poverty traps)
Maintain a system in a quasi equilibrium. Returns to it’s previous state.

3. Development Resilience
“The ability of a household to keep with a certain level of well-being (i.e. being food secure) by withstanding shocks and stresses”
(FAO, 2010).
“The capacity to cope with adverse stressors/shocks without adverse development consequences .” (Resilience Measurement Technical Working Group)
A variety of definitions, but a lot of consistency across them. Normative. Aim to make it a pro-poor concept.

4. Development Resilience
In the face of recurring drought:
The DRR community focuses on maintaining well-being in the short-term, and
The development community focuses on interested in improving well-being in the longer term.
Both are normative, both emphasize well-being.
To achieve this, sometimes system resilience is desirable, sometimes it is a hindrance and what you what is transformation.
What we want to be resilient, is the process of development. In other words, the process of improving human capabilities and well-being over time.

5. Measurement of Development Resilience
Development and DRR communities investing in building resilience. Want to assess impact. Therefore, they want to be able to measure.

6. Some Key Principles for Resilience Measurement
Distinguish outcomes of resilience from determinants of resilience
Development resilience is not simply
The inverse of vulnerability
Coping with shocks
More and better data vs. economy and realism -- need for a balance

7. Resilience Measurement: Three Main Types of Data
We need measures of:
The state of human development (indicators of well-being, and their changes over time),
Shocks (measures of the extent and severity of shocks such as droughts), and
Broader social and ecological conditions (indicators of determinants of resilience).

8. Response of Well-Being To DroughtA B C D
Scenario A depicts multiple disturbances leading to a volatile development process, but with an average development trajectory that is not altered. In Scenario B development progress is slowed down by a disturbance but the rate of progress returns to pre-impact levels thereafter.
In Scenario C a disturbance permanently slows down the rate of developmentScenario D depicts a decline in development as the result of a disturbance.

9. What Development Resilience IS NOT
Well-Being Index
What development resilience is not. Poor before a drought but recover quickly, remain poor. What we want to be resilient is the development process. Here there is no development process to be resilient. So it is not about a household or a community returning to a previous state. It’s actually about the trajectory of this line. [GO BACK ONE SLIDE] The impact of development process resilience is that an upward slope in this line.
Drought

10. Incidence - % Marsabit, Kenya Global Acute Malnutrition Among Children
Moderate Drought
Severe Drought
Extreme Drought
Z scores on weight for height assessment of children to five years of age.
Measures of severity of drought also needed.
Based on SMART Nutrition Survey Data

11. Suggested Conceptualization
(mWB after shock x severity of shock) ƒ RD1, RD2, RD3….
mWB before shock
WB = Well-being
RD = Resilience determinant

12. A local-level HDI would have great value
Some final thoughts
A local-level HDI would have great value
Resilience thinking (system resilience) has much to offer – let’s not lose sight of its insights
I mentioned the need for simplicity. A local level HDI would not be that difficult.
Social-ecological linkages. Complexity and dynamics.

13. Acknowledgements Dryland Systems.
This work contributes to the CGIAR Research Program on
Dryland Systems.
It is supported by the Technical Consortium (TC) for Ending Drought Emergencies and Building Resilience to Drought1 in the Horn of Africa.