Transforming Development: The Science and Practice of Resilience Thinking

With concerns about climate and global environmental changes, extreme events, and increases in social, economic, and political shocks, the concept of resilience is proving popular across a range of sectors as a way to understand and respond to our surprise-riddled world.

Resilience thinking includes the ability to persist in the face of challenges, adapt to new realities, or transform to fundamentally new paths for development. Resilience thinking is more than a theory, more than a set of tools. It is a way of seeing the world, offering a new perspective of how change in the world happens. Resilience thinking provides a new approach for building understanding and taking action in a complex world that is deeply interconnected and ever-changing. A world where controlled, planned approaches, existing knowledge and current solutions are not enough to effectively respond to the challenges in a highly dynamic and uncertain future. Addressing poverty, injustice, and inequality, and advancing human well-being remains a major ambition and challenge for the 21st century, and it now needs to take into account that development will happen in a context radically different from the past.

This course includes case studies and examples from practitioners who are working with resilience concepts in diverse contexts around the world. It is supported by strong scientific evidence and committed to being a platform to bring together and spark collaboration between individuals and organizations from around the world who are driven to transform development.

Target Audience

Development practitioners, policymakers and managers within development agencies around the world, as well as those working in the field with an interest in resilience thinking as it relates to development policy and practice

Students who are interested in the intersection of resilience, sustainability and development, and with a general interest in both local and global sustainability challenges

Anyone with an interest in development, resilience thinking, and sustainability

Learning Objectives

Identify, explain, and analyse the latest key issues and debates regarding global environmental change, sustainability, and resilience in relationship to development
Identify concrete, cutting-edge, and perhaps surprising ways that core concepts of resilience thinking can be applied in practice.
Possess a general understanding of complexity and complex systems in ways that help in analyzing the world and diverse development contexts.
Understand the recent and ongoing evolution of resilience thinking tools used in development practice, and master those that can support your own activities.