Latest Findings on Disaster Resilience: From Burma to California via the Rockefeller Foundation

I’ve long been interested in disaster resilience particularly when considered through the lens of self-organization. To be sure, the capacity to self-organize is an important feature of resilient societies. So what facilitates self-organization? There are several factors, of course, but the two I’m most interested in are social capital and communication technologies. My interest in disaster resilience also explains why one of our Social Innovation Tracks at QCRI is specifically focused on resilience. So I’m always on the lookout for new research on resilience. The purpose of this blog post is to summarize the latest insights.

This new report (PDF) on Burma assesses the influence of social capital on disaster resilience. More specifically, the report focuses on the influence of bonding, bridging and linking social capital on disaster resilience in remote rural communities in the Ayerwaddy Region of Myanmar. Bonding capital refers to ties that are shared between individuals with common characteristics characteristics such as religion or ethnicity. Bridging capital relates to ties that connect individuals with those outside their immediate communities. These ties could be the result of shared geographical space, for example. Linking capital refers to vertical links between a community and individuals or groups outside said community. The relationship between a village and the government or a donor and recipients, for example.

As the report notes, “a balance of bonding, bridging and linking capitals is important of social and economic stability as well as resilience. It will also play a large role in a community’s ability to reduce their risk of disaster and cope with external shocks as they play a role in resource management, sustainable livelihoods and coping strategies.” In fact, “social capital can be a substitute for a lack of government intervention in disaster planning, early warning and recovery.” The study also notes that “rural communities tend to have stronger social capital due to their geographical distance from government and decision-making structures necessitating them being more self-sufficient.”

Results of the study reveal that villages in the region are “mutually supportive, have strong bonding capital and reasonably strong bridging capital […].” This mutual support “plays a part in reducing vulnerability to disasters in these communities.” Indeed, “the strong bonding capital found in the villages not only mobilizes communities to assist each other in recovering from disasters and building community coping mechanisms, but is also vital for disaster risk reduction and knowledge and information sharing. However, the linking capital of villages is “limited and this is an issue when it comes to coping with larger scale problems such as disasters.”

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a low-income neighborhood is  building a culture of disaster preparedness founded on social capital. “No one had to die [during Hurricane Katrina]. No one had to even lose their home. It was all a cascading series of really bad decisions, bad planning, and corrupted social capital,” says Homsey, San Francisco’s director of neighborhood resiliency who spearheads the city’s Neighborhood Empowerment Network (NEN). The Network takes a different approach to disaster preparedness—it is reflective, not prescriptive. The group also works to “strengthen the relationships between governments and the community, nonprofits and other agencies [linking capital]. They make sure those relationships are full of trust and reciprocity between those that want to help and those that need help.” In short, they act as a local Match.com for disaster preparedness and response.

Providence Baptist Church of San Francisco is unusual because unlike most other American churches, this one has a line item for disaster preparedness. Hodge, who administrates the church, takes issue with the government’s disaster plan for San Francisco. “That plan is to evacuate the city. Our plan is to stay in the city. We aren’t going anywhere. We know that if we work together before a major catastrophe, we will be able to work together during a major catastrophe.” This explains why he’s teaming up with the Neighborhood Network (NEN) which will “activate immediately after an event. It will be entirely staffed and managed by the community, for the community. It will be a hyper-local, problem-solving platform where people can come with immediate issues they need collective support for,” such as “evacuations, medical care or water delivery.”

Their early work has focused on “making plans to protect the neighborhood’s most vulnerable residents: its seniors and the disabled.” Many of these residents have thus received “kits that include a sealable plastic bag to stock with prescription medication, cash, phone numbers for family and friends. They also have door-hangers to help speed up search-and-rescue efforts (above pics).

Lastly, colleagues at the Rockefeller Foundation have just released their long-awaited City Resilience Framework after several months of extensive fieldwork, research and workshops in six cities: Cali, Columbia; Concepción, Chile; New Orleans, USA; Cape Town, South Africa; Surat, India; and Semarang, Indonesia. “The primary purpose of the fieldwork was to understand what contributes to resilience in cities, and how resilience is understood from the perspective of different city stakeholder groups in different contexts. The results are depicted in the graphic below, which figures the 12 categories identified by Rockefeller and team (in yellow).

These 12 categories are important because “one must be able to relate resilience to other properties that one has some means of ascertaining, through observation.” The four categories that I’m most interested in observing are:

Collective identity and mutual support: this is observed as active community engagement, strong social networks and social integration. Sub-indicators include community and civic participation, social relationships and networks, local identity and culture and integrated communities.

Empowered stakeholders: this is underpinned by education for all, and relies on access to up-to-date information and knowledge to enable people and organizations to take appropriate action. Sub-indicators include risk monitoring & alerts and communication between government & citizens.

Reliable communications and mobility: this is enabled by diverse and affordable multi-modal transport systems and information and communication technology (ICT) networks, and contingency planning. Sub-indicators include emergency communication services.

Effective leadership and management: this relates to government, business and civil society and is recognizable in trusted individuals, multi-stakeholder consultation, and evidence-based decision-making. Sub-indicators include emergency capacity and coordination.

How am I interested in observing these drivers of resilience? Via social media. Why? Because that source of information is 1) available in real-time; 2) enables two-way communication; and 3) remains largely unexplored vis-a-vis disaster resilience. Whether or not social media can be used as a reliable proxy to measure resilience is still very much a  research question at this point—meaning more research is required to determine whether social media can indeed serve as a proxy for city resilience.

As noted above, one of our Social Innovation research tracks at QCRI is on resilience. So we’re currently reviewing the list of 32 cities that the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities project is partnering with to identify which have a relatively large social media footprint. We’ll then select three cities and begin to explore whether collective identity and mutual support can be captured via the social media activity in each city. In other words, we’ll be applying data science & advanced computing—specifically computational social science—to explore whether digital data can shed light on city resilience. Ultimately, we hope our research will support the Rockefeller Foundation’s next phase in their 100 Resilient Cities project: the development of a Resilient City Index.

See also:

• How to Create Resilience Through Big Data [link]
• Seven Principles for Big Data & Resilience Projects [link]
• On Technology and Building Resilient Societies [link]
• Using Social Media to Predict Disaster Resilience [link]
• Social Media = Social Capital = Disaster Resilience? [link]
• Does Social Capital Drive Disaster Resilience? [link]
• Failing Gracefully in Complex Systems: A Note on Resilience [link]
• Big Data, Lord of the Rings and Disaster Resilience [link]