Focusing on the vulnerability and resilience to economic shocks at the household level, this book draws on extensive research activities carried out in two Melanesia countries: the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. In particular, it identifies the household impacts of the recent food, fuel and economic crises. The contributors also examine resilience by identifying how households responded to these recent economic events in order to cope with their impacts. Findings indicate that households are vulnerable to a range of shocks and often struggle to cope with their impacts. Shocks are making it harder for households to meet their basic needs. Households in Melanesia are facing increasing demands for money, in particular for school fees, basic foodstuffs and customary obligations. Concurrently, there are limited domestic opportunities for formal employment. Traditional social support networks are strong and are an important form of resilience. However, there is evidence that they are disintegrating. Of particular focus are the gendered impacts. Women are found to bear a disproportionate share of the burden in adjusting to household shocks. The authors highlight key areas in which public policy and development programmes can reduce household vulnerability and increase their resilience to future economic shocks.

Focusing on the vulnerability and resilience to economic shocks at the household level, this book draws on extensive research activities carried out in two Melanesia countries: the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. In particular, it identifies the household impacts of the recent food, fuel and economic crises. The contributors also examine resilience by identifying how households responded to these recent economic events in order to cope with their impacts. Findings indicate that households are vulnerable to a range of shocks and often struggle to cope with their impacts. Shocks are making it harder for households to meet their basic needs. Households in Melanesia are facing increasing demands for money, in particular for school fees, basic foodstuffs and customary obligations. Concurrently, there are limited domestic opportunities for formal employment. Traditional social support networks are strong and are an important form of resilience. However, there is evidence that they are disintegrating. Of particular focus are the gendered impacts. Women are found to bear a disproportionate share of the burden in adjusting to household shocks. The authors highlight key areas in which public policy and development programmes can reduce household vulnerability and increase their resilience to future economic shocks.

This book presents essential advances in analytical frameworks and tools for modeling the spatial and economic impacts of disasters. In the wake of natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti Earthquake, and the East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, as well as major terrorist attacks, the book analyzes disaster impacts from various perspectives, including resilience, space-time extensions, and decision-making strategies, in order to better understand how and to what extent these events impact economies and societies around the world. The contributing authors are internationally recognized experts from various disciplines, such as economics, geography, planning, regional science, civil engineering, and risk management. Thanks to the insights they provide, the book will benefit not only researchers in these and related fields, but also graduate students, disaster management professionals, and other decision-makers.

A comprehensive overview of the concepts of vulnerability and resilience for natural hazards research for both physical and social scientists.

Household financial fragility has received considerable attention following the global financial crisis, but substantial gaps remain in the analytical underpinnings of household financial vulnerability assessment, as well as in data availability. This paper aims at integrating the contributions in the literature in a coherent fashion. The study proposes also analytical and estimation extensions aimed at improving the quality of estimates and allowing the assessment of household financial vulnerability in presence of data limitations. The result of this effort is a comprehensive framework, that has wide applicability to both advanced and developing economies. For illustrative purposes the paper includes a detailed application to one developing country (Namibia).

Ending poverty and stabilizing climate change will be two unprecedented global achievements and two major steps toward sustainable development. But the two objectives cannot be considered in isolation: they need to be jointly tackled through an integrated strategy. This report brings together those two objectives and explores how they can more easily be achieved if considered together. It examines the potential impact of climate change and climate policies on poverty reduction. It also provides guidance on how to create a “win-win†? situation so that climate change policies contribute to poverty reduction and poverty-reduction policies contribute to climate change mitigation and resilience building. The key finding of the report is that climate change represents a significant obstacle to the sustained eradication of poverty, but future impacts on poverty are determined by policy choices: rapid, inclusive, and climate-informed development can prevent most short-term impacts whereas immediate pro-poor, emissions-reduction policies can drastically limit long-term ones.

Adaptive social protection (ASP) helps to build the resilience of poor and vulnerable households to the impacts of large, covariate shocks, such as natural disasters, economic crises, pandemics, conflict, and forced displacement. Through the provision of transfers and services directly to these households, ASP supports their capacity to prepare for, cope with, and adapt to the shocks they face—before, during, and after these shocks occur. Over the long term, by supporting these three capacities, ASP can provide a pathway to a more resilient state for households that may otherwise lack the resources to move out of chronically vulnerable situations. Adaptive Social Protection: Building Resilience to Shocks outlines an organizing framework for the design and implementation of ASP, providing insights into the ways in which social protection systems can be made more capable of building household resilience. By way of its four building blocks—programs, information, finance, and institutional arrangements and partnerships—the framework highlights both the elements of existing social protection systems that are the cornerstones for building household resilience, as well as the additional investments that are central to enhancing their ability to generate these outcomes. In this report, the ASP framework and its building blocks have been elaborated primarily in relation to natural disasters and associated climate change. Nevertheless, many of the priorities identified within each building block are also pertinent to the design and implementation of ASP across other types of shocks, providing a foundation for a structured approach to the advancement of this rapidly evolving and complex agenda.