Embracing Local Knowledge Is the Key to Resilience in Northern Kenya, Not Project Box-Ticking
- Author: Ian Scoones
- Full Title: Embracing Local Knowledge Is the Key to Resilience in Northern Kenya, Not Project Box-Ticking
- Category: articles
- Document Tags: #humans
- URL: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/opinion/2023/08/02/embracing-local-knowledge-key-resilience-northern-kenya-not-project-box-ticking
Highlights
- Millions of dollars have been spent on these donor-approved top-down schemes over the years. But in the welter of jargon-heavy policy documents promoting “resilience-building”, the big question remains – what is “resilience”, and for whom? (View Highlight)
- People in the drylands have a long-established repertoire of ways of responding to a difficult environment. This is not just a pattern of passive “coping”, but an active process of deliberate, well-planned response – a well-tuned strategy of living with uncertainty. (View Highlight)
- We must think of resilience as a process, reliant on social relations and diverse forms of knowledge.” (View Highlight)
- At the bottom of the table, in all the discussions we conducted, were government and NGO officials. The interviewees argued they often came late, offered the wrong kind of support, and were not reliable partners.
Instead, at the centre of a web of interactions and responses were the herders themselves, working with a network of local enablers (View Highlight)
- Most important of all were local brokers who can link diverse networks of enablers. They are connected within the local community, but also further afield – with links to NGOs and government officials as well. These brokers are key to sustaining so-called “reliability networks”, where advice is shared and resources mobilised – including both cash and labour. (View Highlight)
- The work of the “reliability professionals” is usually unrecognised – especially by outsiders. It draws on diverse knowledge networks, skill sets, and they are usually good one-on-one communicators. (View Highlight)