The new context for development and why it matters

This deep dive series sets the context for doing development in a rapidly changing world. We will be sharing selections of short, engaging video chapters taken from the recent Massive Open Online Course; ‘Transforming development – the science and practice of resilience thinking.’

Welcome to the Anthropocene

Johan Rockström
Former director, Stockholm Resilience Centre

In this first video, Johan Rockström summarizes the evidence that shows any efforts to meet the Sustainable Development Goals are being undertaken under entirely different conditions from the past. What are the positive and negative trends that have been observed regarding equity, ecosystems, and economies?

Resilience thinking

Carl Folke
Former science director, Stockholm Resilience Centre and director, Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

One of the pioneers in resilience thinking, Carl Folke introduces the history of the concept of resilience, and what we mean by social-ecological systems resilience (SES resilience). Folke describes the power of resilience thinking for understanding the changes we are seeing in the world today, and what they mean for development.

A new context for development

Belinda Reyers
Former Director and Senior Advisor, GRAID, Stockholm Resilience Centre

Belinda Reyers weaves together key concepts from resilience thinking that help us to see the challenges within the current approaches to designing, funding, and managing development from a fresh perspective.

Anthropocene analysis: Gender and development

Michelle Dyer
Postdoctoral Researcher, GRAID, Stockholm Resilience Centre

Recognizing that inequality is a hallmark of the era we are in, this video examines trends in gender inequality – political, economic, and social – to illustrate how system dynamics can reinforce gender inequality despite the best intentions of numerous development projects worldwide. Using the social-ecological lens, Michelle highlights the needs, challenges, and opportunities that exist for transforming development approaches, and the role that gender equality plays across any sector.

Food, Resilience and development

Johan Rockström
Former Director, Stockholm Resilience Centre

Rockström provides an overview of the challenging context we face for food security – including the need to face a rapidly growing population, in which there are already billions facing hunger or obesity. Based on different trends from different agricultural systems, Johan explores the complexity of food systems, including the biophysical, human health, economic, policy and institutional factors that will all require change if we are to truly transform development approaches for a more sustainable and just future. This links nicely to a paper about feeding 10 billion people within environmental limits

Practitioner reflection: Does development need resilience?

Eliot Levine
Director, Energy, Environment and Climate, Mercy Corps

(with contributions from Georgette Pokou, Chet Tamang and Mahlet Seifu from Mercy Corps field Offices)

Mercy Corps is one of several organizations at the forefront of moving resilience concepts directly into action in their work across Africa, South and Southeast Asia. In this video, they introduce how they have used resilience to re-shape their approach to humanitarian and development programming, with examples from field offices around the world.

Explore more deep dives

Deep dive 2: Taking action in a complex world
Deep dive 3: Transformation and rethinking development practice
Deep dive 4: The journey from theory to practice
Deep dive 5: Our intertwined planet: New understandings for development
Deep dive 6: Why global perspectives matters for local development
Deep dive 7: Reimagining development practice