Envisioning resilient communities: risk management, empowerment and capacities for social action

Abstract

Socially excluded territories have been a phenomenon of human occupation and habitat construction that has been invisible for decades and still constitutes a very strong social debt in most cities in Latin America. The conurbations in San Salvador, El Salvador, are no exception. These are dynamic territories with high population density and land uses that are inconsistent and challenging for urban planning. Territories where social violence today, civil war in the past, and sustained natural phenomena have added to the vulnerabilities of residents in the most impoverished communities. With the aim of creating more dignified territories and stronger citizens within them, the study presents the work of a tool intended for development managers who work daily with the social construction of the habitat. The proposed community resilience index (CRI) arises from a comparison of two urban communities at different times in terms of intervention in development projects, and is intended to increase the number of qualitative measurement alternatives for assessing community resilience.

The index, a flexible and open tool, allows managers to rebuild their measurement instruments in terms of community resilience for human strengthening prior to territorial interventions, all with the aim of making development projects more sustainable and participants' capacities more durable over time. The IRC, its elements, and purpose are put at the service of a Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Strategy that is not based exclusively on measurements of anthropogenic actions and the built environment. The strategy presented here culminates in a model proposal for the social construction of community resilience, a simultaneous and ongoing process and goal.