Resilience Action Dialogue: Complex Adaptive Systems | Dr Rika Preiser
November 2018
Dr Rika Preiser presents the concept of complex adaptive systems and uses it to question traditional ways of thinking and working. In essence, she emphasises the opportunities of leading the way in addressing Africa’s challenges with African solutions. See this paper for more details: Social-ecological systems as complex adaptive systems: organizing principles for advancing research methods and approaches – https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol…
Resilience Action Dialogue The Concept of Resilience | Prof Oonsie Biggs
November 2018
Professor Oonsie Biggs cautions about the dangers of building resilience in social-ecological systems that may potentially worsen the situation. Elsewhere she argues that Improving our ability to manage complex, rapidly changing social-ecological systems is one of the defining challenges of the 21st century. This is particularly crucial if large-scale poverty alleviation is to be secured without undermining the capacity of the environment to support future generations. To address this challenge, strategies that enable judicious management of social ecological systems in the face of substantive uncertainty are needed. Several such strategies are emerging from the developing body of work on complexity and resilience – http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/100610
Resilience Action Dialogue – the World Café: sharing experiences in working with resilience
November 2018
Using the method of a World Café, a number of experiences of working with resilience were shared from practitioners from across southern and East Africa.
Resilience Action Dialogue – From Theory into Action | Dr Belinda Reyers
November 2018
Dr Belinda Reyers from the Guidance for Resilience in the Anthropocene (GRAID) reflects on the challenges of working with the concept of resilience and bringing it from theory into practice.
Humanitarian Trends in Southern Africa: Challenges and Opportunities | Ailsa Holloway
November 2018
In order to help us understand what it is to build resilience, Ailsa Holloway from the Research Alliance for Disaster and Risk Reduction or RADAR (http://www.radar.org.za) identifies regional and global factors that may impact the lives and livelihoods of southern Africans and, as importantly, the available capacities to address these challenges. She refers in particular to the report “Humanitarian Trends in Southern Africa: Challenges and Opportunities” (https://reliefweb.int/report/malawi/h…).
Resilience Think Tank: Innovations in the theory and practice of psychological resilience | Linda Theron
June 2019
While there have been shifts in the understanding of resilience over the past decade, there is still much debate, contestation and lack of clarity on what the term means, for whom, how can it be measured, how it relates to concepts such as vulnerability, well-being and transformation, and whether it is a useful framework and entry point for responding to the dynamics of global change.
At the Resilience Think Tank, Linda Theron explored innovations in the theory and practice of psychological resilience.
Resilience Think Tank: Tackling the Anthropocene challenge through social-ecological resilience thinking | Oonsie Biggs
June 2019
The Resilience Think Tank provided an opportunity to share and appreciate varying understandings (both positive and negative) of this concept from both a theoretical/academic and more practical perspective.
In this talk, Oonsie Biggs looks at ways to use social-ecological resilience thinking to tackle Anthropocene challenges.
Resilience Action Dialogue – Introduction
November 2018
The resilience Action Dialogue was convened by the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition (CST) as a way to deepen understanding about the concept of resilience and its application in development work in southern Africa. The Dialogue was held in November 2018 and led to the establishment of a Community of Practice in Resilience for the region.
Resilience Action Dialogue – Resilience Needs Assessment
November 2018
A range of interviews with key practitioners working across southern and eastern Africa was used to develop the workshop. This “needs assessment” is described along with some key findings.
Resilience Action Dialogue: Learning Journey
November 2018
The Learning Journey undertaken along the Stellenbosch River with the Stellenbosch River Collaborative. This was a key methodology used to connect the conceptual work with practice.
Resilience Think Tank 2019: Interrogating resilience in different contexts
The concept of resilience has recently become much more central to many donor calls and several government policies and strategies.
Introduction to RAD II: Resilience questions & perceptions
June 2019
Over the years the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition (CST) has brought together a range of actors from research, policy and practice to explore how using a resilience lens can help us understand and co-develop innovative practices and processes for more just and sustainable futures. In this second Resilience Action Dialogue (RADII) we continue some of the discussions we have been having over the years in the Resilience and Development Community of Practice in southern Africa, with a focus on learning from existing resilience-building activities from key partners in the region.
Resilience Community of Practice – Resource Channel
June 2019
During the second Resilience Action Dialogue we shared perspectives on how to measure and monitor multiple dimensions of resilience through various resilience building activities that are being implemented across Africa. We also explored ways to co-develop a research-action agenda which builds on innovative practices that are being trialed, together with looking for opportunity contexts for policy interventions.
RAD II: Understanding the problems & solutions
June 2019
During our second Resilience Action Dialogue we explored ways to get a deeper understanding of some of the root causes of the challenges that we are facing in order to co-develop responses that are grounded in local realities and draw on multiple knowledge systems.
RAD II: Resilience thinking as a way to understand complex systems
June 2019
The second Resilience Action Dialogue (RADII) provided an opportunity for various actors- from research, policy and practice- to share how they have used resilience thinking to understand complex challenges in the systems where they live and work. Resilience thinking provides a useful tool for understanding the components of a system, the relationships between the different components across time and space, and where opportunities exist to build (or break) resilience to foster more just and sustainable futures.