Table of Contents
Resilience is a needed quality in every area. If an area is resilient, then it can be efficient in the manner it handles a disaster. The susceptibility to current and future disasters is reduced for that area. The more resilient an area is the better it is for the people there. Thus, maintaining resilience at a good level is important for the area and it also prevents relocation of the communities there if it’s not needed. To build this resilience, it starts from the household level and improving the conditions at that level helps in laying a strong foundation and helps in building resilience against emergencies. Resilience is built through various factors – economic, social, interaction between the government and the people, etc. More reliable conditions are favourable for resilience to be built in the areas.
The Role of Government – People Interactions
When the government interacts with the people of a particular area to a good enough extent, then the interaction facilitates more discussions related to the issues face by them at the grassroots level and helps the government in getting to know the issues related to that particular area and helps the government to deal with a wide variety of problems and tackle them effectively which consequently results in resilience being developed for that area. It is quite difficult for all the concerns of each and every person or group to be answered but through this the general concerns of the area, the issues which are faced by most of the people can be heard and measures can be introduced to tackle them. A big catalyst acting towards this are the local governments which often act as the connecting link between the larger government and the people of the area in which the local government operates. NGOs also play an important role in this too. They help in providing the people a platform so that the people can voice their opinions and get the government to work towards the issued which they feel are concerning for them. This also helps in making the government accountable and answerable to the people. This helps in giving effective solutions to the problems and also makes the community more organized and structured so that there is not much disturbance to this flow and working if and when a disaster hits the area and actions need to be taken. The more organized a community is the more stable it is and the resilience factor in the area is strengthened. This is a result of optimal use and distribution of resources at the government’s disposal thereby strengthening the disaster tackling capacity of the area. Therefore the more the interactions between the people and the government the stronger the bond between them as a result of which the stronger the resilience of the area enabling them to disasters and managing them in an effective manner.
Building Resilience through Economic Measures
Measures to strengthen the economic condition of an area always helps in improving the resiliency of an area. These measures improve the conditions of the various households and more reliability is brought upon in these areas. Strengthening the economic base and developing the economy facilitates the improvement of the conditions of the areas and help a lot in the improvement of resilience conditions as they improve the conditions of every household in the area. Strengthening the economy through financial measures helps in increasing the reliability of households and improves the resilience to disasters and emergencies. Financial measures for the people belonging to the economically backward sections of the people living in that area bring these backward and under privileged communities to an even level with the economically stronger and relatively better off sections of the society. This ensures that there is enough for these families to be provided for and thereby ensuring that these families can take care of themselves and manage the situation at hand on their own merit and capabilities and it also serves as an important buffer and insurance/guarantee for them to use in the worst case scenario when they might have to leave their homes and may have to get relocated to other settlements and have to search for new livelihood opportunities. This facilitates in the improvement of the financial conditions ultimately resulting in a more resilient area. Providing money to the more vulnerable sections of the society is helps in developing the area more. Helping the families based on daily-wage and measures taken towards them is a good measure towards this direction. Sometimes it is important to provide for the money beforehand as it may act as a preparedness measure for dealing with these kinds of situations. Not having money results in the people not getting enough resources to make their way around the world during the difficult times of a disaster.
For example, in India, providing the migrants with economic privileges beforehand could have helped them cope with the COVID-19 situation better as they would have the economic resources to make it through the tough times.
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Poor households face a lot of adverse effects whenever a disaster hits their locality. They are naturally, the worst hit section of society. Providing them with capital helps them to graduate from this adverse condition and face the risks associated with a disaster in a much better way than they are currently equipped to. Thus, financial instruments play a significant role in helping the poor of the society tackle the risks associated with a disaster and it reduces disaster risk thus making them more capable and resilient towards disasters.
Building Resistance through Breaking Social Barriers
Another important factor which helps in making a more resilient livelihood is the falling of social barriers. The breaking of social barriers and equal treatment ensures the equitable distribution of resources provided by the government among the people of the communities in an area. This ensures that no one is left behind, both in terms of social and also economic development. One big issue found in many areas, especially the rural areas, is the division of people into different categories, be it upper caste or lower caste or be it the wealthy and the poor. The upper castes are usually the wealthier and the more powerful people and the lower castes are generally the poorer and the less powerful people. Many times we see, that the wealthier and the more powerful people exert a lot of their influence in the decision making processes and try to concentrate the resources around them and eventually leave the poorer people out in the dry to deal with the issues on their own rather than using their money and their resources towards the collective good and letting everyone be better off rather than just them. If this social barrier is broken and this backward mind set of differentiating people in terms of castes and economic positions is abolished then it would serve well for the areas since the people working together with the same objective results in all the problems being resolved due to equal resource distribution as well as having equal capabilities in the hands of all the different sections of society and this ultimately results in the building of resilience among these people. The medieval mind set needs to be changed, through spreading awareness, through campaigns, etc. This also prevents any psychological distress that may be caused to the people. Thus, the breaking down of social barriers also results in resilience creation.
Conclusion
To sum up, livelihood resilience creation is very important so that communities can handle the issues they face due to a disaster in a much better way rather than having low resilience and ultimately having to relocate to different places. Building livelihood resilience is mainly a three-fold task. The first one is through interactions between the governments and the people living in an area where the local governments play a key role as the connecting link between the general public and the government so that the government can pay heed to everyone’s issues and act towards the general concerns of the public resulting in better and safer conditions for the people to live in. The government can also make infrastructural changes, if needed, for the people to be safer. The second way is through economic growth and development, where financial tools and measures can be used to improve the conditions of the poorer households and they can be brought to an acceptable level where they can manage to make it on their own to find new livelihood opportunities if necessary. The money acts as a financial buffer/insurance for these economically weaker sections of the society so that they can deal even with the worst case scenario possible. The third aspect is the breaking down of social barriers among the society. The wealthier and the more powerful upper castes should not use their influence to concentrate the resources around them thereby leaving the poorer and less powerful sections of the society to deal with the problem on their own without many resources. The backward mind set of caste differentiation needs to be demolished through spreading awareness and through campaigns so that equitable allocation of resources is done and everyone is well equipped to deal with problems associated to a disaster thereby making the areas more resilient.
