Participatory learning approaches for resilience: Bringing conflict sensitivity, disaster risk reduction, and climate change adaptation together

World Vision UK is promoting resilience by ensuring that development programme designs,
implementation and monitoring and evaluations systems are informed by holistic vulnerability and capacity
assessments. World Vision UK’s approach to resilience is based on bringing together three well established
development approaches: Conflict Sensitivity, Disaster Risk Reduction, and Climate Change Adaptation.
Underpinning this approach is ensuring that development programming is based on participatory
assessments that reflect and make sense of the complexity of the programme context and identify drivers
of vulnerability across a wide stakeholder group. This resource highlights the importance of Participatory
Learning Action and the specific tools used in conflict sensitivity disaster risk reduction, and climate change
adaptation. Unpacking the tools used by the three communities of practice - peacebuilding, disaster risk
reduction and climate change adaptation - presents an opportunity for practitioners to combine their
approaches during programme assessment and to be more holistic in facilitating community resilience.
To support holistic vulnerability and capacity assessments for resilience programming, a range of commonly
used processes and toolkits from the three communities of practice were reviewed and the specific tools
within each identified. The tools are organised into six categories: hazards and trends, livelihood, power,
root causes, scenario and action planning. Guiding questions from the conflict sensitivity, disaster risk
reduction and climate change adaptation approaches are provided. Using a range of tools, communities
and development practitioners can develop a holistic understanding of the key drivers of conflict, risks and
vulnerability with this streamlined approach. Examples from World Vision Honduras using such tools in
redesigning its development programmes are shared.