Partners for Resilience and GSG present research results

The Partners for Resilience is an alliance of 5 Netherlands based organizations (CARE Nederland, Cordaid, Netherlands Red Cross, Red Cross/ Red Crescent Climate Center and Wetlands International) and their partners in 9 developing countries. PfR uses an integrated approach to mitigate disaster risk and enhance livelihoods, particularly by addressing climate change and ecosystem management and restoration (EMR).

The PfR alliance has funded under the co-financing scheme of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and operates from 2011 until the end of 2015. One of the objectives of the PfR programme is to learn from its overall approach and interventions - both successes and challenges. Among other things, PfR envisages reaching this goal through a qualitative impact study.

The PfR partners have therefore commissioned this study to Globalisation Studies Groningen (GSG) at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands). GSG is an interdisciplinary institute that focuses on issues relating to globalisation, development and humanitarianism. The qualitative impact study, existing of four research phases, explores and analyses the approach, the institutional dynamics and as far as possible the resulting resilience enabling impacts of PfR. This qualitative impact study covers 6 out of the 9 countries where PfR is active. The selected countries are Kenya, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Nicaragua and Guatemala. The selection thus incorporated 2 countries for each continent where PfR is active.

"The most significant change is the knowledge that one has acquired. It's valuable because the knowledge stays in ones mind and no one will erase one's mind, nobody will take it and if we translate it into practice it is much better because there will be a development for the family" (Community member from Madriz region, Nicaragua).

The field studies were preceded by a content-analysis of PfR documents that informed the questions and methodologies of the case studies. The case studies were performed by six researchers, all with a social science and development background.