Building Equitable Resilience: Lessons learned from community case studies
This brief report provides key takeaways from three case studies of community engagement in resilience planning with a focus on equity. The case studies were conducted in order to pilot test materials and approaches developed for the Equitable Resilience Builder (ERB), a tool created by EPA’s Office of Research and Development to support resilience planners and practitioners in conducting an inclusive and participatory process of engagement, assessment, and action identification to enhance community resilience equitably. The key take-aways shared in this report highlight lessons from the workshops and engagement with community members and partners that may benefit those planning in similar efforts, including local, state, and federal officials and community-based organizations. These include barriers to equitable resilience, ideas for improving resilience, aspects of the process that contributed to success, and roles for local, state, and federal government in equitable resilience.
Equitable resilience as a concept is evolving and emergent as traditional approaches to resilience do not go far enough to ensuring equitable distribution of risks and benefits. Prioritizing equity in resilience planning through participatory engagement creates opportunities for deeper understanding of the systems and structures that cause inequities and identifying actions to address them.
Our key take-aways from the case studies were:
• Community members understand clearly that marginalization and systemic disempowerment are barriers to equitable resilience, as are lack of accessible information, capacity, and resources.
• Infrastructure and service improvements are critical for increasing community resilience, but so are knowledge and training, networks and connections, and resources directed at organizations working directly with community members.
• Resilience should be considered holistically, accounting for intersecting impacts and stressors, and highlighting strengths as well as vulnerabilities.
• Convening in person provides opportunities for community members to learn from each other, strengthen connections, empower each other to take action, and generate targeted solutions.
• Methods for centering equity within workshops include: ensuring participants are representative of the community, providing compensation to participants for their time and expertise, utilizing facilitation to ensure production discussions, being guided by local partners, and ending with clear commitments to next steps for implementation.
• Participatory activities such as storytelling, mapping and brainstorming actions provided a richer understanding of vulnerability and potential equity solutions than social vulnerability analysis.
• Local, state, and federal governments have key roles to play in equitable resilience by participating in convenings with community members and using their ability to convene others, recognizing community trauma, coordinating across agencies and organizations to improve services, increasing transparency and accessibility of funding, and working to sustain partnerships.
Centering equity in resilience planning takes time, capacity, and intention, but the process itself helps build greater resilience. Even if efforts are imperfect, taking steps and a willingness to learn can go a long way towards strengthening connections and building a foundation for progress.