Equitable Resilience in Local Institutions (ERLI)

Very often, the state is no longer considered the sole risk manager; instead risk is dispersed across the private sector, households, and individuals. Within this context local institutions have emerged as an important conduit through which development and disaster risk management decisions are to be delivered. This approach brings together different stakeholders, and can reduce risks and maximize opportunities. Yet with a focus on outcomes, rather than the social processes through which resilience is built and maintained, resilience practice has had mixed results. In particular, the resilience of some members of communities (often those with some form of power) is supported at the cost of others. The failure to engage critically with the mechanisms through which resilience is understood and delivered can rapidly lead to inequity in outcomes.

Equitable Resilience in Local Institutions (ERLI) looked at how resilience practice plays out ‘on-the-ground’ through local institutions. These institutions regulate flows of knowledge and resources, and have the potential to bring about systemic transformative change. In doing so, ERLI focused on resilience practices both as outcomes and processes, aiming to develop our understanding of the meaning and practices of equitable resilience.

By reviewing past experiences reported in the academic literature, the project identified four critical areas of engagement with equity in resilience practice. These are Transformation, Inclusion, Scale and Subjectivities. ERLI’s objective was to investigate how these different strands interact to generate equity in development and disaster outcomes.

These four individual strands draw attention to the transformative and adaptive capacities of institutions; and the inclusion of stakeholders and power relations that result in varied engagements to resilience building. In order to gain a better understanding of these power relations the project proposed a multi-scalar approach that spans across spatial, temporal and institutional scales. Further, it looked to the subjectivities of individuals, often based on their ethnic, religious, gender or other attributes, that can both inform their social identities and subject them to discriminatory values and practices further undermining their resilience.

To understand the way in which the four strands interact, ERLI identified stabilizing/destabilizing effects, disturbances and disruptions experienced in development and disaster risk processes. These are identified in relation to ecosystem services, physical infrastructure, organizational interactions and formal and informal institutions. Equity in development and disaster risk outcomes was identified through the degree of resilience experienced within different groups of people within communities.

The four strands (TISS) were then used as an analytical lens to help understand the connections between disturbances and the outcomes experienced by different groups, to provide an insight on the empirical practice of securing more equitable resilience.

The research focused on Bangladesh. According to the Climate Change Vulnerability Index (2015), Bangladesh is an ‘extreme risk’ country, where the risk to the economy from climate change is greater than in any other country. Thus it is imperative to understand ways to develop and promote equitable resilience.

Case studies were carried out during 2017-2018 in two distinct socio-ecological regions of Bangladesh. These included the ethnically diverse northern hill regions and the disaster prone coastal areas. With a combination of household and participatory surveys, social network analysis, systems mapping and focus group discussions, the data collected uncovered different components of the system, and the role of local institutions in building resilience in their community.

Through in-depth and qualitative case studies of nine local institutions in Bangladesh, insights were developed for policy and practice to strengthen work on the management of environmental shocks and change in other developing countries.