Evaluating humanitarian aid and development sector resilience: Finding solutions to complex problems

Resilience allows organisations to withstand complex threats through the process of resisting risks through control measures, making incremental adjustments when faced with a threat, or undergoing transformative change when a crisis requires major adjustments to structures and practices. The humanitarian aid and development community is unique in that its very nature draws it to danger, while other sectors avoid or withdraw from environments that present elevated human-made threats and natural hazards. The sector faces increasing safety and security challenges, commonly within fragile states or post-disaster environments, which is further complicated by rising stakeholder expectations. Strategies that integrate resistance, incremental change and transformation protect organisations that are exposed to high levels of risk, while the absence of resilience exposes organisations to potentially catastrophic threats. This paper explores shortfalls and potential solutions within sector resiliency by discussing the meaning of resilience and its application, assessing the challenges the community faces, evaluating the importance of the security practitioner in building and promoting resiliency, defining what constitutes best practice, and determining how knowledge can be operationalised through learning.