Assessing Resilience:
Components
Relationships
Innovation
Continuity
5th African Drought
Adaptation Forum
Lance W. Robinson

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
•
•
•
•
Cattle, sheep and goats
Camels
Pastures
Water points
• Herd mobility
• Pasture regeneration processes
• Commons institutions governing access to water
Sources of Innovation
• Diversity and flexibility of
livestock species mix
• Organizational and institutional linkages
• Biodiversity embedded in sacred sites and patchy landscape pattern
Sources of Continuity
• Sacred sites
• Oral history

Examples of Thresholds Indicators
Elements of the
Social-Ecological System
Components
• Camels
• Pasture and water points
Relationships
• Herd mobility
• Commons institutions for water
Examples of
Threshold Indicators
• No. of camels/household
• Sq. km. of quality pasture within 20 km.
of temporary dry season water sources
• 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
• α diversity of plant species in sacred sites
sites and a patchy landscape pattern
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