Resilience Measurement Practical Guidance Note Series

More Info

The Resilience Measurement Practical Guidance Note Series, authored by REAL in 2018, synthesizes technical documents into pragmatic guidance with the goal of assisting practitioners in integrating core aspects of resilience measurement into their program assessments, design, monitoring, evaluation and learning. The series introduces key concepts and guides practitioners through the process of resilience measurement, from assessment to analysis. Learn more about the Resilience Measurement Practical Guidance Note Series below.

Guidance Note #1: Risk & Resilience Assessments

To develop effective, measurable resilience-building strategies, practitioners must consider the complex interactions that exist between risks, people and the socio-ecological systems in which they live. A risk and resilience assessment provides a means for practitioners to better understand the complex factors that influence resilience to shocks and stresses in a given context. This process is critical to developing and improving a theory for effecting change, upon which resilience-building strategies can be based.

Guidance Note #2: Measuring Shocks and Stresses

Investing resources in resilience building requires earnest efforts in resilience measurement and analysis, and an indispensable component of resilience measurement is shock measurement. Incorporating shock measurement into monitoring and evaluation frameworks serves two purposes. The first is to gain conceptual understanding of the complex relationships between disturbances, critical capacities and wellbeing to better design and evaluate initiatives focused on building resilience. The second is related to the fact that shocks and stresses pose significant operational threats to development gains.

Guidance Note #3: Resilience Capacity Measurement

USAID defines resilience as “the ability of people, households, communities, countries and systems to mitigate, adapt to and recover from shocks and stresses in a manner that reduces chronic vulnerability and facilitates inclusive growth.”1 This definition describes the relationship between three distinct elements that in combination form the basis of a resilience measurement framework – resilience capacities, shocks and stresses, and well-being outcomes.

Guidance Note #4: Resilience Analysis

This document provides an overview of many of the quantitative and qualitative approaches used for resilience analysis, and identifies examples and resources for further exploration and capacity development. As such, this guidance note is not a comprehensive step-by-step “how-to,” rather it aims to:

• Help readers understand the purpose and function of common approaches to quantitative and qualitative data analysis, i.e. what kinds of questions the analysis will be able to answer.
• Equip readers with a basic understanding of what is entailed in each of the analytical approaches, what types of data are required, and what skills are needed to implement the different analyses.
• Illustrate the main assumptions, strengths and weaknesses of the different analytical approaches highlighted in this guidance note.

Guidance Note #5: Design and Planning for Resilience Monitoring and Evaluation at the Activity Level

In developing this guidance note, the REAL team focused on a frequent question from staff in the field who manage resilience activities or lead their monitoring and evaluation: how can we monitor and evaluate resilience in the field for the immediate benefit of target communities? The guidance note relies on several examples from Mercy Corps’ projects in South and East Asia, as significant effort has been invested in developing resilience result chains, logframes and indicative resilience questions that activities can attempt to answer depending on their timeframes and internal capacity.

Guidance Note #6: Recurrent Monitoring Surveys

Measuring resilience requires tools that can capture how individuals, households and communities draw on resources and employ strategies to respond to shocks and stresses and how this affects their wellbeing trajectories in the short and long-term. A key resilience measurement tool for capturing these dynamics is the recurrent monitoring survey (RMS).

Guidance Note #7: Cost-Benefit-Analysis in Resilience Programming

The purpose of the final Guidance Note is to provide a resource for policymakers and implementing organizations looking to identify cost effective resilience interventions and prioritize development resources using this economic analysis tool called, Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA), to understand the costs and benefits of building resilience capacities in contexts affected by shocks and stresses, and access additional learning resources.