Resilience: new utopia or new tyranny?

Author(s):Béné, C.; Godfrey Wood, R.; Newsham, A.; Davies, M.

IDS working paper volume 2012 number 405/ CSP working paper number 006:

This paper addresses the influence of resilience in development and vulnerability reduction sectors such as social protection, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, and presents some reflection about the potentials and limits of the concept of resilience in relation to vulnerability reduction programmes. While the review highlights some positive elements –in particular the ability of the term to foster integrated approach across sectors– it also shows that resilience has important limitations. In particular it is not a pro-poor concept, and the objective of poverty reduction cannot simply be substituted by resilience building.