On January 18, 2017 Helen Young joined the panel discussion, “How to build resilience from the ground up” at ODI. The event attracted a standing-room only crowd and large online audience. In her opening remarks, Helen set the stage by describing the difference between traditional humanitarian programming and resilience programming.  The key differences are that resilience programs allow for longer-term approaches that take into account recent history and look into the future; they prioritize partnerships, participation and collective capacity building; and they work with multiple layers of government.

Later in the discussion, Helen emphasized the importance of mixed methods approaches when measuring resilience, the fact that livelihood systems are not the same (even in the same region) and therefore the “blueprint approach” is not effective, and that understanding that local practices are designed to manage climate variability and therefore should be strengthened in any resilience building efforts.

The video of the discussion is available here.

The panel included:

• Razia Iqbal (Chair) – Special correspondent and presenter, BBC News
• David Howlett – Senior Policy Adviser, Global Resilience Partnership
• Helen Young – Research Director for Nutrition, Livelihoods and Conflict, Tufts University
• John Twigg – Principal Research Fellow, ODI
• Isaac Gahungu – Programme Coordinator, Concern Worldwide (via videolink)
• Melq Gomes da Silva – BRACED IRISS Consortium Coordinator, South Sudan (via videolink)