Resilient Livelihoods –

The Development of Christian Aid’s Approach

South Asia PPA Partners Workshop 2013

Presented at the Christian Aid – Regional Consultation on Resilience – South Asia

06-08 Feb 2013, Kathmandu, Nepal

Climate change has increasingly exposed the

flaws in our development approach…

The Problem

Despite 50 years of aid and development, we

are still not effectively anticipating, mitigating

and responding to short-term disasters in a

way that enhances long-term development

We are not implementing long-term

development in a flexible way that mitigates

and responds to short-term risk

And we are missing the inter-relationships

between risk that undermine the sustainability

of our work e.g. health and climate

We need to break down the silos we work

in…

The Background

Past experience, evaluations, partner

research and feedback (e.g. South Asia CC

Workshop 2008)

The THIA process (climate change for the 1st

time), now into P4C

Significant programmes – esp. BDRC, AIF,

SCR

Guidance – adaptation toolkits 1-4, good

practice guidelines, earlier frameworks (e.g.

climate change 2008)

But also…

Linking our conceptual models and tools

(SLA+RCM+PAR) + (PVCA+HAP+PPAM)

Climate change (adaptation learning and

practice)

Resilience thinking from academic partners

(IDS, HFP, Elinor Ostrom & WSSD 2002)

Science-based approaches, esp. those that

focus on anticipation/forecasting risk…

Ris

k c

yc

le m

an

ag

em

en

t

Highly

unpredictable

(short lead

times)

Sporadic,

irregular,

singular

Relatively

Predictable

(long lead

times)

Frequent,

incremental

Earthquakes

Drought

Volcanic

eruptions

Disease

outbreaks

Sea-level rise

Cyclones

Market

failure

Conflict

Ecosystem service

collapse

Theft of

assets

Gender-based

violence

Temperature

rise

The Process

First draft (and feedback from colleagues)

Second draft (June 2012, to PPA workshop)

Programme consultations (e.g. The

Philippines)

Third draft (Sept 2012, to senior management)

Circulated to all programme managers for final

feedback (Oct 2012)

Two products – a short briefing (public) and a

technical paper (programmes, the sector)

But what do you think

resilience means?