Aligning Resilience and Wellbeing Outcomes for Locally-Led Adaptation in Tanzania

Abstract

Interventions to address climate adaptation have been on the rise over the past decade. Intervention programmes aim to build the resilience of local communities to climate shocks, and ultimately their wellbeing by helping them to better prepare, adapt and recover. Resilience, similar to human wellbeing, is a multidimensional construct grounded in local realities and lived experiences. Yet current evaluation frameworks used in resilience programming rarely consider what resilience means in local contexts prior to implementation. This means policy designs risk failing to improve resilience of communities and creating unintended negative consequences for communities’ wellbeing. Better processes and indicators for assessing resilience are needed. This paper explores the interplay between local predictors of resilience and wellbeing to assess the validity of self-assessed indicators as part of frameworks to measure resilience. We draw from research on the Devolved Climate Finance (DCF) mechanism implemented between 2014 and 2018 in Tanzania. We find that different factors explain resilience when compared to wellbeing; while resilience is primarily influenced by relationships, wellbeing is correlated with livelihoods. This shows that incentives to improve resilience differ from those of wellbeing. Climate and development practitioners must adopt locally grounded framings for resilience and wellbeing to ensure interventions track appropriate indicators, towards positive outcomes.

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