IPCC Report.pdf - Adam Curry

Chapter 8Toward a Sustainable and Resilient Futuretransformative marks a shift from emphasizing finite projects with lineartrajectories and readily identifiable, discrete strategies and outcomes(Schipper, 2007) toward an approach that includes adaptive management,learning, innovation, and leadership, among other elements. Theseaspects of adjustment are increasingly seen as being embedded inongoing socio-cultural and institutional learning processes. This can beobserved in the many adaptation projects that emphasize learning aboutrisks, evaluating response options, experimenting with and rectifyingoptions, exchanging information, and making tradeoffs based on publicvalues using reversible and adjustable strategies (McGray et al., 2007;Leary et al., 2008; Hallegatte, 2009; Hallegatte et al., 2011b).Transformational adaptations are likely to be enabled by a number offactors. Some of the factors arise from external drivers such as focalevents that catalyze attention to vulnerabilities or the presence of othersources of stress that also encourage considerations of major changes.Supportive social contexts such as the availability of understandableand socially acceptable options, access to resources for action, and thepresence of incentives may also be important. Other factors are relatedto effective institutions and organizations, including those described inthe following subsections.8.6.3.1. Adaptive ManagementIn general terms, adaptive management can be defined as a structuredprocess for improving management policies and practices by systemiclearning from the outcomes of implemented strategies, and by takinginto account changes in external factors in a proactive manner (Pahl-Wostl et al., 2007; Pahl-Wostl, 2009; Section 6.6.2). Principles of adaptivemanagement can contribute to a more process-oriented approach todisaster risk management, and have already shown some success inpromoting sustainable natural resource management under conditionsof uncertainty (Medema et al., 2008). Adaptive management is oftenassociated with ‘adaptive’ organizations that are not locked into rigidagendas and practices, such that they can consider new information, newchallenges, and new ways of operating (Berkhout et al., 2006; Pelling etal., 2007). Organizations that can monitor environmental, economic,and social conditions and changes, respond to shifting policies andleadership changes, and take advantage of opportunities for innovativeinterventions are a key to resilience, especially with respect to conceivablebut long-term and/or relatively low-probability events. Those socialsystems that appear most adept at adapting are able to integrate formalorganizational roles with cross-cutting informal social spaces for learning,experimentation, communication, and for trust-based and speedy disasterresponse that is nonetheless accountable to beneficiaries (Pelling et al.,2007).Adaptive management is a challenge for those organizations thatperceive reputational risk from experimentation and the knowledgethat some local experiments may fail (Fernandez-Gimenez et al., 2008).Where this approach works best, outcomes have gone beyond specificmanagement goals to include trust-building among stakeholders – aresource that is fundamental to any policy environment facing anuncertain future, and which also has benefits for quality of life andmarket competitiveness (Fernandez-Gimenez et al., 2008). It requiresrevisiting the relationship between the state and local actors concerningfacilitation of innovation, particularly when experiments go wrong.Investing in experimentation and innovation necessarily requires sometolerance for projects that may not be productive or cost effective, or atleast not in the short term or under existing risk conditions. However, itis exactly the existence of this diversity of outcomes that makes societiesfit to adapt once risk conditions change, particularly in unexpected andnonlinear directions.8.6.3.2. LearningThe dynamic notion of adaptation calls for learning as an iterativeprocess in order to build resilience and enhance adaptive capacity now,rather than targeting adaptation in the distant future (see Section 1.4.2).Social and collective learning includes support for joint problem solving,power sharing, and iterative reflection (Berkes, 2009). The need to takeinto account the arrival of new information in the design of responsestrategies has also been mentioned for mitigation policies (Ha Duong etal., 1997; Ambrosi et al., 2003). Adaptive management is an incrementaland iterative learning-by-doing process, whereby participants make senseof system changes, engage in actions, and finally reflect on changes andactions. Lessons from learning theories, including experiential learning(Kolb, 1984) and transformative learning (Mezirow, 1995), stress theimportance of learning-by-doing in concrete learning cycles, problemsolvingactions, and the reinterpretation of meanings and valuesassociated with learning activities.Learning is a key component for living with uncertainty and extremeevents, and is nurtured by building the right kind of social/institutionalspace for learning and experimentation that allows for competingworldviews, knowledge systems, and values, and facilitates innovativeand creative adaptation (Thomas and Twyman, 2005; Armitage et al.,2008; Moser, 2009; Pettengell, 2010). Examples include promotingshared platforms for dialogs and participatory vulnerability assessmentsthat include a wide range of stakeholders (see ISET, 2010). It is equallyimportant to acknowledge that abrupt and surprising changes maysurpass existing skills and memory (Batterbury, 2008). Adaptation projectshave demonstrated that fostering adaptive capacity and managinguncertainty in real-time, by adjusting as new information, techniques, orconditions emerge, especially among populations exposed to multiplerisks and stressors, is more effective than more narrowly designedplanning approaches that target a given impact and are dependent onparticular future climate information (McGray et al., 2007; Pettengell,2010). In the humanitarian sector, institutionalized processes of learninghave contributed to leadership innovation (see Box 8-3).Action research and learning provide a powerful complement toresilience thinking, as they focus explicitly on iterative or cyclicallearning through reflection of successes and failures in experimental467