What Resilience Really Means
Resilience isn’t “bouncing back.” It’s bouncing forward—absorbing shocks and emerging stronger. In Nepal, earthquakes, floods, and pandemics stress our system. The R4R work taught me to operationalize resilience in everyday decisions.
Three Anchors of System Resilience
- Preparedness: Stock management, risk mapping, surge staffing, and clear roles.
- Adaptive Management: Monitor, learn, iterate. Plans change; accountability shouldn’t.
- Community Partnership: Systems fail when communities are treated as passive recipients.
My Role and Reflections
I supported design sessions with provincial stakeholders, documented local innovations, and co-facilitated learning workshops. The most successful districts had simple protocols everyone understood, data routines that were actually followed, and local ownership of decisions.
What Worked on the Ground
- Micro-contingency plans: Ward-level SOPs beat glossy national manuals no one reads.
- Data minimalism: A few high-signal indicators are better than dashboards few can maintain.
- Trusted messengers: Community leaders accelerate adoption far faster than notices.
The Hard Parts
Silos persist. Staff turnover erases institutional memory. Funding cycles don’t match community timelines. The fix? Institutionalize learning—make it someone’s job.
A Practical Resilience Checklist
- Do we know our top five risks?
- Who owns decisions at each level?
- Which two indicators signal we must pivot?
- How are we documenting what we learn?
- How are communities engaged beyond “informed”?
Closing
Resilience is a discipline. When we practice it daily, systems don’t just survive shocks—they improve because of them.
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