Addressing power and scale in resilience programming: A call to engage across funding, delivery and evaluation

Abstract

Resilience has recently emerged as a conceptual and operational buzzword spanning every facet of the international development agenda. The rise of resilience provides renewed opportunities for geographers to critically engage with the policy sphere and shape ongoing discourse over the nature of resilience programming. Yet, while aspects of the political economy of resilience have long been acknowledged in both academic and practitioner literatures, scholarly inputs have had limited influence in addressing issues of power and scale as applied directly to resilience programming. In this commentary, we argue that enhanced uptake of geographic enquiry is contingent on geographers being more proactive in engaging with resilience practitioners. One way of doing so is to tailor scholarly inputs to three critical elements of the programmatic cycle, namely how resilience-building activities are funded, delivered, and evaluated. Using these three facets, we highlight key practical and ethical considerations worthy of further geographic enquiry – focusing on issues of power and scale as concepts at the heart of geography.