Mainstreaming Resilience into Development Programming: A Practitioner’s Perspective

Abstract

This paper starts with the acknowledgment that resilience is still a confusing concept, difficult to demonstrate, but a necessity when considering community’s development programming. It then presents the innovative approach developed by the INGO Plan International while developing a toolbox addressing both programming and accountability requirements regarding resilience, i.e. combining process-oriented and performance-oriented dimensions. At first it presents the strategic and programmatic vision of Plan for resilience—child-centered approach, based on the characterization of resilient communities and on a two-levels review process (the “what” and the “how”) of programming activities. As a second part, specific processes and tools—under construction—are described, that are designed to support programming teams in: (i) screening existing programmes/projects from the resilience perspective, (ii) design projects so that they contribute to resilience building. As a conclusion, the opportunity brought upon by the resilience debate to rethink the development paradigm from a community and human perspective is highlighted. Resilience building must be understood as interfering with causal pathways of change and not only as a linear programming process towards pre-defined outcomes. To make such a shift happen on the ground, tools are needed—translating academic knowledge on resilience into practitioners’ toolbox; this paper aims at contributing to connect the dots, providing a framework for a reality check on the field of development programming.