Image: Marienne and Elizabeth, residents of Wala village, Vanuatu, stand near a tree that fell during TC Hola. Credit: Anna Gero.
Today’s world presents us with numerous risks, and arguably, the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change are currently at the top of the list. In this blog, ISF researchers reflect on the complex, cross-cutting and intersecting nature of COVID-19 and climate change, and the resulting imperative to consider multiple types of risk (e.g. environmental, geopolitical, financial) across all development work. We provide three main reasons why risk integration is important, and illustrate these with examples of our own practice of incorporating risk into our research.
Risk integration, or, to use a term recently coined by UNDP, risk-informed development, means anticipating many different possible threats and proactively mitigating their potential negative effects, whilst also leveraging opportunities and maximising possible beneficial and synergistic effects. It means appreciating the many and varied ways people experience shocks and stresses: different levels of coping result from inequality and disparities in access to services and support. Risk integration also means appreciating the ways different types of risk can intersect and compound, and trying to anticipate the best way to respond.
Development policy and practice is increasingly adopting a risk integration mindset, based on the premise that stand-alone risk management planning is less effective, and supporting the common catch-cry that ‘risk is everyone’s business’. Already, climate change is considered as cross-cutting. For example, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s (DFAT’s) Climate Change Strategy (2019) notes that, “DFAT will also integrate climate change action across Australia’s development assistance program”. Non-government organisations are also embracing the risk integration approach, e.g. Oxfam’s 2016 Resilience Framework describes the organisation’s approach to integrating risk across its programming. These are encouraging steps and hopefully momentum towards effective risk integration will build over time. At ISF, we take a risk integration approach where possible. For instance, it is now common practice for our many water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) research projects to include climate change, at least as a cross-cutting issue, if not at the forefront of the research objectives.
The arguments for risk integration as a development approach are many. Here, we highlight three key reasons for risk informed development.
The first main reason why risk integration is important is because risks threaten development progress. This is aptly illustrated by both COVID-19 and climate change, therefore requiring a holistic response that acknowledges interconnected impacts. Recently, we have seen how COVID-19 has up-ended business-as-usual development activities and caused huge disruptions to progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Millions of people have been pushed back into poverty as a result of lost incomes and insufficient social protection, often with disadvantaged communities, women and children most at risk. An estimated 90 per cent of students worldwide have been kept from school as a result of closures due to COVID-19. While the consequences of missed schooling are unknown, past research indicates that children are less likely to return to school if it is shut down for long periods (Anderson 2019). We know that climate change is a threat multiplier: it adds layers of complexity and unpredictability to already challenging circumstances. ISF’s recent research exploring community experiences of resilience to climate change and disaster risks in four Pacific countries found that climate and weather changes were eroding the resilience of livelihoods. Climate change is adding a layer of uncertainty to communities who rely on natural resources for their livelihoods. It adds economic challenges as well. For example, the community in Wala Island (Malampa Province, Vanuatu) was facing stronger wind patterns. On some days, this made canoeing from their island to the mainland impossible. Families therefore had to pay for motorised water transport, and children missed school when winds were too strong to travel across the water. Addressing these types of challenges requires a holistic perspective that appreciates the intersection of multiple and complex risks, as opposed to consideration of risks on their own.
The second reason to take a risk-integration approach is that a lack of consideration of risks undermines equality of development progress, including with respect to gender. Marginalised, poor and disadvantaged communities, and some individuals within communities, are disproportionately affected by certain risks: climate change and COVID-19 included. For instance, gender inequalities lead to different climate change impacts experienced by women and men. Women are often responsible for domestic activities such as food preparation and gathering water – activities made more difficult as a result of climate change. Women also comprise a greater proportion of the world’s poor. And since the poor are more vulnerable to climate change impacts, women again face disproportionate risks to climate change impacts. A recent study of the impacts of COVID-19 revealed that, due to existing gender inequalities, women have experienced a higher proportion of job losses compared to men over the pandemic. Part of the reason is that women shoulder a higher burden of unpaid care work, and thus leave the workforce faster than men. This trend of women having lower income adds to the feedback loop of women being poorer than men, hence more vulnerable to other socio-economic risks.
At ISF, we acknowledge the gendered dimension to the differential experiences of risk. We are currently partnering with Plan International and WaterAid on a DFAT-funded Water for Women project, which explores ways to integrate considerations of gender and climate change into existing WASH programs. Acknowledging gender inequalities and considering how these can amplify the risks of climate change to WASH access, is a nexus point that civil society organisations are grappling with. Our research is providing road-tested practical approaches to help address this issue.
The final reason why risk integration is important is because of the dynamic and contextual nature of risk. The dynamic nature of climate change impacts and COVID-19 are compelling decision-makers to shift boundaries with regard to managing risk. Pacific Governments have realised that COVID-19 has presented a type of risk (pandemic) previously viewed as low priority in national development policy and legislation as compared to more frequent hazards affecting the region such as tropical cyclones, drought and earthquakes. COVID-19 has grown into a global pandemic requiring all governments to formulate responses. In the Pacific, this has required the redefining of the term ‘disaster’ to be inclusive of pandemics and man-made disasters and not only hydro-geological hazards more common to the Pacific region.
As an example, in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the UN’s Cluster System, designed to encourage national coordination in times of disaster, has been insufficient for the COVID-19 response as it excluded border control agencies from the primary clusters. Changes to the cluster system were needed to include these important stakeholders.
In Fiji, risk-informed development has been integrated into subnational government practice in Western Division. A communique prepared by the divisional Commissioner provides guidance that all planning and sectoral programming in the Division integrates considerations of risk, in order to reduce and/or mitigate the impact of climate change and disaster (Western Division Government of Fiji 2015).
These examples highlight the need for shifting boundaries, flexibility and acknowledgement of local context – and subsequent importance of local leadership – when it comes to risk integration.
Risk has always been a part of life, and climate change and COVID-19 have highlighted that the development sector must do better to integrate risk into policy and programming. As international development researchers, there are also things we can do to improve our practice to more effectively integrate complex risks into our work. At ISF, we are therefore focusing on three main opportunities to better integrate risk into our work, whilst recognising the need to draw boundaries on what is possible and what is not.
Firstly, we know that we cannot work in silos. Risk integration across sectors and scales supports an anticipatory and inclusive approach to reducing risk as a common practice, and our transdisciplinary teams can better identify linkages across sectors and scales, more so than single-discipline teams with expertise in niche areas. At ISF, our team comprises researchers with a range of disciplinary backgrounds, with many of us having moved from one discipline to another, which significantly helps in supporting us to take a holistic view.
Secondly, it is critical to acknowledge that some people are disproportionately affected by certain risks: climate change and COVID-19 included. Our approach integrates consideration of gender and social inclusion as the norm, and, where appropriate and relevant, we are making efforts to consider sexual and gender minorities and disability more explicitly in our research processes.
And lastly, we strive to incorporate an approach that adapts to the dynamic, localised and contextual nature of risks. Wherever possible, our research activities prioritise local voices and leadership, which is critical for sustainable change and supporting the localisation agenda. While earlier examples of the development sector embracing risk integration are encouraging, the sector also needs improve its practice of risk integration through these and other opportunities. Doing so will further enable the benefits of development programs to be more equitable and sustainable in our rapidly changing world.
