Assessing Resilience:

5th African Drought Adaptation Forum

Lance W. Robinson

Components Relationships Innovation Continuity

Resilience

• … is an emergent property of complex social-ecological systems

• … results from dynamic, non-linear relationships among variables

• … is very difficult to measure until a threshold has been crossed

Resilience

• … is an emergent property of complex social-ecological systems

• … results from dynamic, non-linear relationships among variables

• … is very difficult to measure until a threshold has been crossed

• … is context specific

Influence Diagram Produced by Elders of Yaa Sharbana

CRIC Components

Relationships

Sources of Innovation

Sources of Continuity

• Cattle, sheep and goats • Camels • Pastures • Water points

• Herd mobility • Pasture regeneration processes • Commons institutions governing access to water

• Diversity and flexibility of livestock species mix

• Organizational and institutional linkages • Biodiversity embedded in sacred sites and patchy landscape pattern

• Sacred sites • Oral history

Examples of Thresholds Indicators Elements of the

Social-Ecological System Examples of

Threshold Indicators

Components • Camels • Pasture and water points

• No. of camels/household • Sq. km. of quality pasture within 20 km.

of temporary dry season water sources

Relationships • Herd mobility

• Commons institutions for water

• TLUs in the rainy season based within x

km. of permanent water sources • Ratio of private wells operated as

commons vs. private property

Sources of Innovation • Biodiversity embedded in sacred

sites and a patchy landscape pattern

• α diversity of plant species in sacred sites

Sources of Continuity • Sacred sites

• Sq. km. of land respected as a sacred

sites or other community-conserved areas

Building Resilience: Implications on the Ground

• Development of temporary water sources in good pasture areas

• Creation and strengthening of organizational/ institutional linkages

Next steps:

• Both context-specific and generic indicators are needed

• ILRI together with Technical Consortium (TC) for Ending Drought Emergencies and Building Resilience to Drought in the Horn of Africa is working toward a resilience measurement framework based on both

Thank you

L.Robinson@cgiar.org