29 October 2024
Why is Resilience Important?
A resilient community can handle challenges well and recover quickly. Being resilient isn’t just about bouncing back from bad events; it’s also about growing and getting better at dealing with future challenges. It means being ready and able to change but also finding new ways to thrive, even when things change on us.
What is Community Resilience?
There is no one way to define resilience and many ways to describe it depending on the situation. Some have come to describe the different areas that make up community wellbeing or standards of living. Using the framework below we can describe some elements of community resilience more clearly.
| FACTOR | DEFINITION | DESCRIPTION OF A RESILIENT COMMUNITY |
|---|---|---|
| Natural | The ‘natural’ environment and the resources it provides a community, such as water, soil, air, plants, and animals. | – The community takes care of nature, like forests and rivers, which can help protect against things like floods or droughts.
– People use eco-friendly methods to make sure natural resources like water and soil stay healthy and last a long time. |
| Human | The capabilities and capacities of people in a community including their skills, knowledge and mental and physical health. | – Everyone knows about the challenges that climate change can bring and learns the skills they need to deal with those challenges. |
| Social | The values, symbols, practices, and assets that make up a community’s identity. This includes the rules, activities and structures that guide and govern decision-making in a community as well as the networks, connections and relationships of people in a community. |
– People in the community use their local traditions and knowledge to help deal with climate changes.
– They also make sure to keep their cultural heritage alive and celebrate it, so everyone remembers their history and values. – There are strong connections between people, so they can support each other and work together, especially during tough times like natural disasters. – The community listens to everyone’s opinions and makes sure that even the most vulnerable people are taken care of. – The community has good leaders and clear rules, which help everyone work together smoothly to prepare for and handle climate change and its impacts. – They have laws and plans that support using resources wisely and preparing for the future. |
| Financial and Physical Capital | The infrastructure, physical buildings, financial resources and wealth within a community. | – The buildings and roads are designed to handle extreme weather, so they don’t get damaged easily.
– Important places like hospitals and shelters are strong and easy for everyone to get to, even in emergencies. – The economy has different types of businesses, which helps keep it strong and stable even when things go wrong. |
This comes from Treasury NZ they call the Living Standards Framework.
There are other frameworks also, such as The Whānau Ora Outcomes Framework developed by Te Puna Kokiri that are especially relevant in Aotearoa and in Te Taitokerau.
Why do we need resilient communities?
How successfully a community responds when it is challenged, or a shock occurs, depends on its resilience. Resources from outside the community are not always available, especially in a crisis.
Community resilience is important as climate change brings new challenges, like more extreme weather. When we consider how climate change impacts on the different human capitals some aspects of our resilience need to be bolstered and supported.
How do we invest in community resilience?
We can use the factors above to identify ways to improve community resilience in a proactive way, but it would require support from your community. There is no right way to do that, but usually it’s about finding something you already have in common, this might be via schools or sports, or common interests. Often, changes and shocks force a community, through necessity, to learn and improve. Without proactive measures, many communities’ resilience is not sufficient to suffer the worst shocks. This is why more frequent or more extreme shocks due to climate change may further challenge our communities. It’s important that people understand that community resilience is something we build every day often just a one bit at a time.
Check out the Actions below for things you can do or read more about Invest in Resilience.
Posted in: Education