Climate Change and Impacts. Business as Usual? Africa Economic Symposium (AES) 2024 – 2nd Edition Recap.

 

 

Welcome to our Newsletter! The Policy Center for the New South recently hosted the 2nd edition of the Africa Economic Symposium (AES) on July 11-12, 2024. The event, themed “Fostering Africa's Economic Transformation through Innovative Financing,” brought together a distinguished assembly of economists, policymakers, and academics from across the continent and beyond. The aim was to discuss the macroeconomic management challenges and structural issues shaping Africa's economic future.     Opening Remarks and Key Themes   The symposium’s opening sessions underscored Africa’s complex macroeconomic landscape, highlighting the pressing need for innovative fiscal strategies amid tightening monetary policies and persistent inflation. The discussions emphasized the necessity of addressing financial resource gaps to meet the continent's development needs, such as rising social demands, infrastructure, energy transition, and technological advancement. Effective governance reforms, robust public finance measures, and the mobilization of private savings were identified as critical components for unlocking financial resources.    Session 1: Monetary Policy Challenges: Is Inflation Over?   Experts debated the efficacy of African central banks’ monetary policies in balancing economic growth with inflation control. Despite decreasing inflation rates in many African countries, inflation remains above pre-pandemic levels, affecting vulnerable populations. Discussions explored the implications of high interest rates, the expected economic landing for African nations, and the coordination between monetary and prudential policies to ensure financial stability.     Session 2: Addressing Fiscal Discipline   The session focused on the challenges posed by rising public debt in Africa. With public debt-to-GDP ratios projected to increase significantly, panelists discussed strategies for maintaining fiscal discipline while addressing development objectives. Emphasis was placed on medium-term budget planning, the potential of sovereign wealth funds, and fiscal rules to stabilize budgets and mitigate economic shocks.     Session 3: Navigating Financial Resource Limitations Amidst Growing Economic Development Needs   This session addressed the critical financial resource gaps in Africa and the necessity for mobilizing both domestic and international financial resources. Key topics included enhancing governance frameworks to ensure transparent and efficient allocation of resources, supporting investments in renewable energy, infrastructure, and human capital, and exploring policies to maximize the impact of financial resources.     Parallel Session 4: Innovative Financing Mechanisms for Green Transition    Panelists discussed the need for innovative financing mechanisms to achieve Africa’s green transition by 2030, requiring substantial investments. The session explored private capital mobilization through green bonds and impact investing, public resource maximization, and the role of technology in improving transparency and incentives.     Parallel Session 5: The Role of Development Finance in Addressing Social Challenges    The session examined the relationship between development finance and social progress in Africa, focusing on poverty alleviation, gender equality, and inclusive growth. Strategies for leveraging development finance to enhance education and healthcare systems, particularly in underserved communities, were explored.     Session 6: Unlocking Domestic Financing Potential    Discussions centered on strengthening Africa’s banking sector and local financial markets to mobilize private savings and support productive investments. Public finance reforms, monitoring tax fraud and illicit financial flows, and leveraging Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) were highlighted as key strategies for unlocking domestic financial potential.     Session 7: The Role of International Financing in Africa’s Development    Panelists addressed the pressing financial needs of Africa in the context of climate change, debt levels, and the need for substantial investments in climate adaptation and mitigation projects. The role of international financial institutions, debt restructuring mechanisms, and the African Development Bank in supporting Africa’s development goals were key topics of discussion.     Closing Reflections    Over two days, AES 2024 facilitated a rich exchange of ideas and strategies to position Africa as a new engine of global growth. The presentation of the Annual Economic Report on Africa provided a comprehensive overview of the continent’s economic dynamics. The symposium underscored the importance of innovative financing and governance reforms in fostering Africa’s economic transformation and addressing its development challenges.

The Interplay Between Individual and Community Resilience June 2024

 

The Interplay between Individual and Community Resilience

Jul 05, 2024

Crisis Lab

The Interplay between Individual and Community Resilience

6:15

6:15

By Daniel P. Aldrich, Craig Katz, Talia Levanon

With multiple ongoing conflicts around the world - including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Hamas-Israel war - as well as increasingly frequent natural hazards such as hurricanes, flooding, and heat waves, civilian populations face major stressors and shocks.

Those who survive initial shocks may struggle to regain a sense of normalcy through loss of homes, livelihoods, and loved ones. In this context, we envision individual and community resilience as two interconnected yet distinct concepts that play a crucial role in the aftermath of any crisis.

While their approaches and areas of focus differ significantly, they share a common goal of fostering recovery and adaptation. They overlap and complement each other in several ways.

Individual resilience refers to the ability to recover, grow, and adapt following adversity or challenges of any kind. It involves a range of ways of experiencing oneself and the world and of acting in the world that can help individuals navigate challenging circumstances.

Examples of resilience factors include being realistically optimistic, facing one’s fears, seeking support from social networks, and finding meaning while moving through the experience. Various factors influence individual resilience, including prior exposure to trauma, socioeconomic status, demographic characteristics, preparedness and access to mental health support.

Community resilience, on the other hand, emphasizes the collective capacity of a community to prepare for, withstand, and transform from a crisis. It encompasses the social, cultural, and institutional resources that communities can leverage to support their members and facilitate recovery.

Core mechanisms that promote community resilience include strong social networks, effective leadership, shared knowledge and resources, and a sense of collective identity, all of which generate trust. Communities that lack bonding and bridging social capital - homogeneous and heterogeneous ties, respectively - and experience divisions due to ethnicity, race, or religion often struggle to achieve shared resilience.

The interplay between individual and community resilience is complex and multifaceted.

While individual resilience is essential for personal well-being, it is also deeply influenced by the community context. Supportive social networks, access to shared resources, a shared language of coping, and a mutual sense of belonging can significantly enhance an individual's ability to cope with adversity.

Conversely, community resilience is built upon the foundation of individual resilience, as the strength of a community is derived from the collective strength of its members. If many evacuated community members are unwilling to return home, their absence can hinder the recovery of those who have returned.

So how can the interplay between individual and community resilience shape long-term recovery after a crisis, and what strategies can enhance both to better prepare for future challenges?

In the aftermath of a crisis, both individual and community resilience are critical for long-term recovery. Individuals need support to address their physical as well as psychological and emotional needs, while communities need to mobilize resources and coordinate efforts to rebuild and adapt. Understanding the interdependence of individual and community resilience can lead to more effective interventions that support the needs of both individuals and communities.

For instance, integrating immediate and long-term mental health services with medical services can increase accessibility for individuals and foster a sense of community cohesion. Co-locating these services in a communal space - whether a health clinic, library, or school - can increase the likelihood that community members will engage with them. Similarly, initiatives that promote and engage with social infrastructure - the places and spaces where we build trust and connections, such as parks, places of worship, public spaces, and social businesses - scaffold interactions and encourage the reformation and reinforcement of ties. Further, mechanisms that encourage shared knowledge and identity can enhance community resilience while also providing individuals with the resources and support they need to recover.

An examination of some of the resilience promoting behaviors reveals the reciprocity between individual and community resilience. Almost every individual resilience factor involves at least one approach that relies on the people and community around the individual. Spending time with optimistic and supportive people can promote realistic optimism. Vital cognitive flexibility around a trauma is enhanced by reaching out to other people who have gone through a similar situation as well as by giving back and participating in community service following the trauma. Facing fear or grief, rather than avoiding them and causing them to persist or worsen, can be made easier by doing it with the support of others. All important social support involves investing effort in both seeking out and in offering support.  A resilient community is sure to boast resilient role models for people to look to as examples.

Getting involved in activities that enable the individual to feel connected to something greater than themselves reflects a dimension of spirituality someone can fulfill by giving back to their community. Meaning can be found by locating one’s place in the legacy and history of their community and then adding to it. And, if in times of crisis circumstances cause someone to act in ways that violate their moral compass, they can heal their moral injury by sharing their distress with trusted friends, family, or colleagues rather than wrestling with it alone. Societies need consistent strategies which strengthen the relationships and language between individuals and community so that they are prepared for emergencies.

With future shocks and crises all but guaranteed, societies need to invest resources in preparing for mass migration, displacement, and accompanying mental health crises. By recognizing that we can actively develop resilience at the individual and community levels, societies can better prepare for a future which will likely see increasing levels of crises and disasters.

Community-Led Disaster Resilience Model Benefiting Those That Need It Most

 

• Community-Led Disaster Resilience Model Benefiting Those That Need It Most: A report from Monash University highlights the positive impacts of a community-led approach to disaster resilience. The Fire to Flourish program empowers local communities affected by climate disasters through flexible funding and support, leading to measurable improvements in disaster resilience. The report emphasizes the need for innovation and experimentation in disaster management to better support communities in the future.
• Community Resilience Through Bottom–up Participation: When Civil Society Drives Urban Transformation Processes: This study explores how bottom-up participation in urban spaces, driven by civil society initiatives in Berlin, can strengthen community resilience. The research emphasizes the importance of governance processes to fully leverage the potential of bottom-up participation and highlights the need for inclusive and diverse community involvement for long-term resilience. The study suggests that engaged civil society can contribute to the transformation of cities and increase the resilience of communities.

Why people ignore the warning to flee. We must get better at evacuating people | CNN July 2024

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/01/opinions/disaster-evacuation-preparedness-lewin/index.html  Opinion: I’ve been on the frontline of disasters. We must get better at evacuating people Opinion by Robert Lewin Published 6:37 PM EDT, Mon July 1, 2024   Editor’s Note: Robert Lewin is the former chief California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE)/San Luis Obispo County Fire, capping off a 38-year fire service career, and former director of the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management. He is principal at Resolute Associates, an emergency management consulting firm. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion at CNN. CNN —  In 2003, we were already days into an overwhelming Southern California fire siege when I was reassigned to the Grand Prix fire ripping through San Bernadino and Los Angeles counties. I was immediately deployed to direct the night operations on the branch where the wildfire was running west at a “critical” rate of spread under the hot and ferocious Santa Ana wind. As my L.A. County Fire partner and I were trying to get ahead of the flames, we drove up a narrow road into a canyon neighborhood above the endless sea of homes in the flat valley below. Appropriately called Live Oak Canyon, the neighborhood was tight with homes surrounded by native brush and oak trees — now threatened by fire in the hills above. When the residents went to bed that night, the fire was miles away and no threat. But now it was here, and they were struggling to understand their situation as they stood in the street in their night clothes gazing at the mesmerizing fire. Along with a few police officers, my partner and I told the residents they must evacuate now. But the small road out of the canyon rapidly became backed up with cars — a potentially deadly traffic jam. We got out to the intersection with a four-lane thoroughfare only to find that the evacuees were stopped by oncoming drivers who were unaware of the disaster unfolding in the canyon above. I saw a police officer nearby, ran out to him and clearly requested that he stop all traffic until the people evacuating the canyon could get out. Until that moment, he just didn’t know the extent of the emergency. When eliminating an emergency threat is not possible, protecting people is limited to only a few possible actions: You can alert people to shelter-in-place, evacuate a building, evacuate a neighborhood or evacuate a community. Evacuation of people and animals is always complex — and often fails for a few and sometimes for many. It also can vary from county to county since disaster response and recovery in the United States primarily rests with local governments. As well intentioned as they are, these localities may not have the resources or the experience that a disaster requires — especially when they need to evacuate people. But what happens when people can’t — or won’t — get out of harm’s way? There are two types of disasters: one that you know is coming at you and one that suddenly happens. An approaching storm, a tsunami or a wildfire usually gives responders some time to alert and attempt to evacuate a community. An earthquake, an explosion or a levee break may give you no time. In both cases, disasters require quick decisions and fast action by authorities in real time to prevent or limit injuries and deaths. An immediate threat makes the decision to order evacuations clear. When a fire, chemical leak or active-shooter emergency is occurring, people obviously must leave and they understand the threat. But more often, the decision of whether to evacuate is nuanced. Is the storm or hurricane growing in strength? Where will it strike? Is that area prone to flooding? And how much time do we have? The wildfire is a ridge away from the community. Are the winds and temperatures increasing? How long would it take for everyone to leave? Do we have that kind of time? Do we evacuate the entire neighborhood or just the first few streets next to the wildland? Worse than being at home during a flood or wildfire is being on a road impacted by those threats where there is no protection. Should we have issued a shelter-in-place order instead of evacuation? People in institutions such as hospitals, care facilities, schools and certain hazardous industrial facilities may be better off sheltering in place depending how hardened the facility is from the threat and whether time will allow for a complicated evacuation. Protecting it may be a better option. First responders have two options when responding to an emergency. They can go on the offense and stop the threat where it is, or they can go on defense, focusing their efforts on protecting people and property. Firefighters, for example, can go offensive and extinguish the wildfire to prevent its spread to the community. When the fire intensity is too great or the terrain too difficult to take this strategy, it forces them to back off, evacuate the community and focus protection on key points of a threatened neighborhood. Some communities in these types of scenarios have tried to prepare for a future emergency that may require evacuation by developing procedures, purchasing alerting systems, providing dedicated emergency management staff and conducting continuous training of responsible agencies. They realize authorities cannot issue an emergency alert if they do not have the equipment, the staff to operate it and the procedures and training for that staff on how to do it. Why people don’t go Stacy Willett, a University of Akron professor in the Department of Disaster Science and Emergency Services, studied evacuations after Hurricane Katrina and  singled out six major reasons why people ignore the warning to flee: older age gender (men are more likely to ignore evacuation orders), previous personal experiences with emergencies, cost, pets and peer pressure-type influence from others. Evacuations must meet the true needs of the entire affected community. In addition to supporting the needs of people with access and functional needs, including seniors and people with disabilities, warnings and other critical information should be broadcast simultaneously in all the primary languages that are spoken in a community. Emergency managers need to truly partner with Red Cross and other relief organizations to ensure all people who need emergency shelter are provided equal access, physical access and access to effective communication. Evacuation preparedness must always consider the needs of people’s pets and livestock. People will hesitate or not evacuate at all if they are not confident their pets will be taken care of. Older adults are more likely to die from a disaster. The average age of victims who died in the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California, was 72. Many adults can’t easily evacuate – some because they don’t drive, others because they are physically unable. And some people simply refuse to evacuate. Capable neighbors must commit to helping their elderly neighbors safely evacuate during an emergency. Ultimately it is the individual and family, not the authorities urging them to leave, who make the decision to evacuate or not. Even within families there may be conflict with one person wanting to leave and the other arguing that they should stay and protect their home. After the deadly Montecito, California, debris flow — a mudslide that killed 23 people on January 9, 2018 — we kept hearing stories of families who debated whether they should follow the evacuation order that was issued 24 hours before the disaster. In some cases, families would split up and some members would stay behind. Some people will have evacuation fatigue — they have been evacuated multiple times before and nothing happened, they reason. An already skeptical population will often find the validation they seek to make their argument to stay or go. Government officials who say people in the path of disaster must leave now may not hold as much influence as the neighbor down the street who is choosing to stay. Communities must learn from each other’s experiences with disaster evacuations. Unfortunately, we do not seem to do this very well. It is as if we all must touch the hot stove to learn it is hot. How many news conferences do we have to hear authorities say “we have never seen anything like this before” — when only a county or two away they had a similar experience just a few years earlier? Lake County, California, in 2015; Sonoma County, California, in 2017; the Town of Paradise, California, in 2018; northwest Oregon in 2020; and Maui County, Hawaii, in 2023 are just a few examples of deadly disasters where the public criticized authorities for similar evacuation failures. All too often we see these same failures repeat despite countless disaster after-action reports detailing recommended improvements. Local governments in the United States, with the assistance of state and federal governments, should be able to learn from each other’s experiences, create effective evacuation processes and ensure that the authorities who must implement them are ready. Making the danger clear When faced with an emergency, authorities in all communities must be able to identify when to evacuate, where to evacuate from and where to evacuate to, and be able to successfully alert and notify the community of the evacuation. Procedures must be in place and training exercises should occur regularly. When people are better informed, they have the tools to make better decisions about evacuating. When the government puts out information, the public expects it to be accurate. But information released during an emergency also must be fast, often at the expense of full verification and accuracy. Threading this needle is essential. Using terminology that is standardized and intuitively understood will help. And yet that too can be a challenge. For example, look at weather forecasting: Most disasters are weather-related, and all disasters are impacted by weather. The National Weather Service (NWS) is a national treasure as NWS scientists throughout the country use an amazing array of technology and vast experience to provide us with life-saving predictions. Even so, NWS terminology can be confusing. To deliver critical weather threats, the NWS created standardized terminology for weather-related emergencies: “watch,” “warning” and “advisory.” But most people do not understand what those terms mean. Even the most experienced emergency manager may struggle to not only get the NWS terminology correct but convey that message internally and to the public. The public needs to know if a weather disaster is imminent or possible — or if bad weather will just cause inconvenience. Fortunately, the NWS has committed to making some “plain language” changes to their alerts in 2026. One helpful benchmark may be the UK, where they use a color-coded warning impact matrix that tells you how likely the event is and what impact it will have. Red indicates a very high likelihood of a very high-impact weather event. Standardization of terminology that drives decisions on protective actions is essential. The catastrophic California wildfires of 2017 and 2018 exposed inconsistencies that often led to confusion among the public at the very moment that clarity and certainty were needed. When the Thomas fire began in Ventura County, California, on December 4, 2017, Ventura County immediately began evacuations using the words “mandatory” and “voluntary,” depending on the area’s threat level. After destroying over a thousand homes and killing a woman, the fire marched into Santa Barbara County, where our policy had been to use the terms “evacuation order” and “evacuation warning.” But for days the public had been hearing, and were now educated on, the terms used in Ventura County, where authorities were still issuing new evacuations. I was the director of the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management and part of the leadership team overseeing the fire response. Rather than use our terminology we chose to align with the neighboring county by using “voluntary” and “mandatory” for the tens of thousands of people we would evacuate. When we had to call for evacuations again prior to the torrential rains that fell on the burn-scarred mountains above Montecito, we continued using these terms. The terminology may have caused confusion and contributed to lives being lost when people in the “voluntary” evacuation area chose to stay. California law enforcement agencies came together in 2020 to standardize the terminology: “evacuation order,” “evacuation warning,” “shelter in place.” This standardization of terminology needs to be used and emulated across the country. The terms “mandatory evacuation” and particularly “voluntary evacuation” should be discontinued; they are only causing confusion. People in threatened areas should be either ordered to evacuate now or warned there is a possibility they will be evacuated, giving them valuable time to prepare. Preparing before disaster strikes Most disasters cross jurisdictional lines and involve many agencies. When each jurisdiction and agency individually issues critical information to the public, that inevitably leads to confusion and mistakes. Bringing all these entities together into a joint information center at one central location improves the ability to deliver a consistent and complete message. It also gives bench strength to smaller entities with limited communications staff. But all of these intersecting agencies must practice together long before a disaster occurs. They should agree upon and create press release templates, websites and interactive maps. They should identify a call center location to field inquiries and pick a location where they will all hold press conferences. Waiting until a disaster strikes will result in a community distrusting disjointed messaging, thereby reducing the number of people who will leave when told to evacuate. Similarly, people — especially in disaster-prone areas — should consider ahead of time how they would act if asked to evacuate. For many years wildland fire agencies have been using the “Ready, Set, Go!” method to prepare a community for the steps they must take when wildfire is a threat. Their homes should be “ready” for fire season. When a wildfire is nearby, residents need to get “set” by loading their car, checking on elderly and disabled neighbors and moving large animals such as horses to a safer place. Then be ready to “go” if imminently threatened or ordered to evacuate. Following the 2018 Montecito debris flow disaster, this clear messaging was successfully used to prepare people for more approaching atmospheric river storms that continued to threaten the community below the denuded mountains. We could see that instructing people to be “ready” and “set” improved residents’ response to the evacuation order when we said “go.” This type of messaging could easily be adapted for hurricanes, floods and storms as well as emergencies involving dams and nuclear or chemical facilities. We have plenty of knowledge and experience supported by endless studies and incident reports showing how we can improve evacuations. We have to apply this in a way that moves people to heed warnings. If we do not, we will continue to see a repeat of evacuation failures and an unnecessary loss of life. Local authorities must prioritize evacuation preparedness including having adequate staffing, incorporating lessons learned, crafting standardized messaging, updating alert systems and increasing community education. A community must see that when an evacuation is ordered it is confidently followed. If we learn key lessons from past emergencies, we can do better.