Can We Measure Resilience? A Proposed Method and Evidence from Countries in the Sahel

Alfani, Federica; Dabalen, Andrew; Fisker, Peter; Molini, Vasco

doi:10.1596/1813-9450-7170

Cited by 41 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…crosssectional) did not guarantee an adequate measure of resilience as capacity. A slightly different analytical framework for resilience and food security is proposed by Alfani et al (2015). Motivating their framework on the grounds of consumption and income smoothing, the authors learn from the program evaluation literature and build their model on a counterfactual framework.…”

Section: Operationalizing and Measuring Resilience From A Household Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience and household food security: a review of concepts, methodological approaches and empirical evidence

2019

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The way economic studies conceptualize and measure resilience is very heterogeneous. This does not only challenge scientific progress, but also raises the question of whether they measure one identical concept with different methods or whether they measure different understandings of resilience. This paper provides a review of concepts, methodological approaches and empirical evidence on resilience from a food security perspective, focusing on socioeconomic research. We perform a systematic literature search to identify recent publications that analyze resilience from the perspective of household food security. We examine the historical evolution of concepts and methods used for measuring resilience and synthesize the evidence. We find that conceptual and analytical models have evolved over time, with important technical adjustments. Studies initially focused on measuring resilience as an end in itself, but more recently resilience is understood as a means to an ultimate end, hence resilience capacity is measured instead. Also, resilience was initially measured as an indicator of food security. Currently it is measured distinctly from food security. Multivariate techniques are found to be frequently used to quantify resilience. The empirical evidence suggests that households with higher resilience capacity tend to have less child malnutrition and better food security. We find that causal pathways through which resilience capacity affects food security in a microeconomic framework are barely explicitly considered in empirical analyses. Therefore, we suggest a model which explicitly addresses these pathways.

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Section: Operationalizing and Measuring Resilience From A Household Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience and household food security: a review of concepts, methodological approaches and empirical evidence

2019

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“…Other quantitative approaches for measuring resilience exist. While a comprehensive review can be found in ILRI (2016), one of the most recent is Alfani, Dabalen, Fisker, and Molini (), which used cross‐section data from four countries in the Sahel region of Africa. In that study, the sample was divided into three groups: chronically poor, non‐resilient and resilient households, and the study used counterfactual welfare indexes at the household level before and after shocks.…”

Section: Resilience Measurementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross‐country Evidence of the Relationship Between Resilience and the Subjective Perception of Well‐being and Social Inclusion: Evidence from the Regions of Matam (Senegal) and the Triangle of Hope (Mauritania)

d’Errico

Grazioli²,

Pietrelli³

2017

J of Intl Development

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Resilience, commonly perceived as an unobservable household characteristic, has been defined differently according to each measurement approach utilized. This paper contributes to the literature, both conceptually, by reviewing the link between resilience, subjective well‐being and social inclusion; and analytically, by providing statistical evidence of whether subjective measures of well‐being are associated with higher household resilience. The paper shows that those who perceive themselves and their community to be involved in the decision‐making process related to policies and service provision are associated with greater resilience capacity. The empirical evidence is based on two household surveys in Senegal and Mauritania. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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“…These studies have focused on the following: identifying which economic units are or are not resilient; the differential impacts of shocks on these units; and the responses of different economic units to these shocks (Hoddinott 2006, Carter et al 2007, Akter and Mallick 2013, Alfani et al 2015, Jain et al 2015, Cissé and Barrett 2016. Analysis of this nature enables interventions to be targeted to increase the resistance of farmers to hazards, e.g., flood resistant seeds (Dar et al 2013) or enable ex post coping (e.g., Akter et al 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience to hazards: rice farmers in the Mahanadi Delta, India

Duncan¹,

Tompkins²,

Dash³

et al. 2017

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Developing country deltas are important food producing areas and are home to large numbers of subsistence farmers. In particular, rice farmers dominate the populous deltas of South and Southeast Asia and face frequent climate hazards that have short-and long-term impacts on rice production and livelihoods. The aim of this study is to identify and explain proximal and ultimate factors (land access, cultural practices, and institutional support) that affect rice farmer resilience, that is, to explain why some farmers are more sensitive to climate shocks, why some farmers suffer long-term impacts from climate shocks, and what underlying "ultimate" factors reproduce this vulnerability over time. We undertake this analysis using qualitative interviews and household survey data from two districts in the Mahanadi Delta, Odisha, India. We show that climate hazards cause rice production shocks that are problematic for farmers because rice is predominantly used for household consumption in a context of unreliable off-farm income sources and a lack of insurance and credit. Our research emphasizes that "ultimate" drivers interact with the current mode of rice cultivation to reproduce a low resilience farming state. We argue that agricultural development interventions seeking to make rice farming more resilient to climate hazards should focus on boosting productivity and shock-resistance, but also be cognizant of the system within which rice farming is practiced and the contextual "ultimate" factors that reproduce vulnerability.

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Can We Measure Resilience? A Proposed Method and Evidence from Countries in the Sahel

Cited by 41 publications

References 32 publications

Resilience and household food security: a review of concepts, methodological approaches and empirical evidence

Resilience and household food security: a review of concepts, methodological approaches and empirical evidence

Cross‐country Evidence of the Relationship Between Resilience and the Subjective Perception of Well‐being and Social Inclusion: Evidence from the Regions of Matam (Senegal) and the Triangle of Hope (Mauritania)

Resilience to hazards: rice farmers in the Mahanadi Delta, India

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