Introduction

Building the capacity to bounce back

The face of disasters is changing. Soaring urban populations, environmental degradation, poverty and disease are compounding seasonal hazards such as droughts and floods to create situations of chronic adversity. Old ways of coping are proving inadequate. But equally, people at risk are finding new ways to respond on their own initiative.

Aid organizations must keep up. We need new approaches that boost people's resilience to the full spectrum of physical, social and economic adversities they face. By resilience, I mean people's ability to cope with crisis and bounce back stronger than before. If we fail to shift from short-term relief to longer-term support for communities in danger, we risk wasting our money and undermining the resilience we seek to enhance.

Top-down interventions may prove less effective than many assume. Following last December's devastating earthquake in Bam, 34 search-and-rescue teams from 27 countries flew to the city and saved 22 lives. Meanwhile, local Red Crescent teams pulled 157 people alive from the rubble, using far fewer 'sniffer' dogs. Investing in local response capacities saves lives and money.

However, 'natural' disasters are not the biggest killers. In sub-Saharan Africa last year, 2.2 million people died from HIV/AIDS, while 25 million live with the infection. Disease, drought, malnutrition, poor healthcare and poverty have together created a complex catastrophe, demanding a more integrated response than simply food aid or drugs.

Meanwhile, the unplanned acceleration of urban areas is concentrating new risks. Diseases from filthy water and sanitation kill over 2 million people a year - many of them slum children. So why have national governments and aid organizations barely addressed the issue?

The developed world faces new threats, too. Five degrees more summer heat than usual triggered a disaster that shamed modern, wealthy societies across Europe in 2003. Up to 35,000 elderly and vulnerable people suffered silent, lonely deaths, abandoned by state welfare systems in retreat.

Europe was caught off guard. Humanitarian organizations are more prepared for sudden-impact, high-profile disasters. But as the nature of disaster changes, we must change too. Instead of imposing definitions and solutions on people we consider vulnerable, we should ask them what they define as a disaster. How are they adapting to the new risks facing them?

The answers can be surprising - and inspiring. In Swaziland, HIV/AIDS and drought are conspiring to leave many perpetually hungry. But Chief Masilela informs us that his community wants irrigation and seeds - not food aid - so they can grow crops, craft their own recovery and retain their dignity. His government, meanwhile, is expanding access to life-lengthening drugs and recruiting 10,000 women as 'surrogate parents' for thousands of AIDS orphans.

Across the Indian Ocean in Mumbai, one woman we report on has rented out her comfortable apartment and moved into a shack beneath a bridge, at risk of flooding and fire. That way, she can pay for her daughter's education. She's decided the family's longterm resilience depends on investing in her daughter rather than living somewhere safer.

To the south, the low caste women of Andhra Pradesh have rediscovered indigenous, hardy seeds to help farmers recover from debt and despair as their cash crops - recommended by experts in distant capitals - wither in the drought.

The capacity for resilience in the face of adversity shines through all this year's stories. People continually adapt to crisis, coming up with creative solutions. They prioritise livelihoods and household assets rather than the quick fix. Supporting resilience means more than delivering relief or mitigating individual hazards. Local knowledge, skills, determination, livelihoods, cooperation, access to resources and representation are all vital factors enabling people to bounce back from disaster. This implies a paradigm shift in how we approach aid. We must focus on the priorities and capacities of those we seek to help.

Mapping vulnerabilities and meeting needs is no longer enough. The idea is not new - it's been enshrined in The Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief for the past 10 years. So why do humanitarian organizations still fail to assess - let alone harness - the capacities of those at risk?

Three things need to happen. First, we must understand what enables people to cope with, recover from and adapt to the risks they face. Second, we must build our responses on the community's own priorities, knowledge and resources. Third, we must scale up community responses, by creating new coalitions with governments and advocating changes in policy and practice at all levels.

If we focus only on needs and vulnerabilities, we remain locked in the logic of repetitive responses that fail to nurture the capacities for resilience contained deep within every community. We have talked about building capacity and resilience for decades. It is now time to turn rhetoric into reality: to dispel the myth of the helpless victim and the infallible humanitarian, and to put disaster-affected people and their abilities at the centre of our work.