Handle with care: Resilience to Fragility, Conflict, and Violence (FCV Resilience)

Handle with care web elements_IG Square

SECTOR

World Bank

PROJECT TYPE

Report

DOI

Location

Global

BEHAVIORAL THEME

Resilience
OVERVIEW

Busara contributed to a World Bank study exploring how resilience can be better understood, analyzed, and applied in contexts affected by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV). The resulting publication, Handle with Care: Resilience to Fragility, Conflict, and Violence (FCV Resilience), develops a conceptual and operational framework for understanding how individuals, communities, institutions, and systems respond to conflict, violence, instability, and related shocks, while identifying practical implications for development policy and programming.
Here is how the World Bank introduces the study:

Acknowledging that bringing together two highly complex, broad, and even contested concepts— resilience and FCV—is an intimidating undertaking, this study approached the task at hand with a great deal of humility. The objective was to frame resilience to FCV (with a particular focus on conflict, violence, social unrest, instability, and their direct effects) as opposed to the more common discussions around resilience in FCV (various sectoral programming that takes place in FCV settings). Given relatively scant evidence within the development sector on resilience, the approach taken was one of inquiring and learning, particularly from the vast body of knowledge and evidence that already exists from multiple other disciplines. The common themes and trends that emerged from this corpus were then investigated further to see how they are applicable and relevant to FCV. The intended audience for this work is the international community of practice that focuses on conflict and fragility, including policy makers and practitioners as well as scholars and analysts.

THEMATIC AREAS

Some Findings

  • Resilience has become a central concept in development and humanitarian work, but its application to fragility, conflict, and violence remains conceptually unclear and operationally inconsistent.
  • Conflict and violence create unique conditions that require a distinct understanding of resilience, separate from broader resilience frameworks.
  • The study introduces the concept of FCV Resilience, emphasizing the capacity of actors within complex social systems to respond to drivers and manifestations of conflict and violence.
  • Resilience in FCV contexts is highly context-specific, dynamic, and shaped by relationships between actors, institutions, beliefs, and systems.
  • The study develops the ABCD Framework (Actions and Actors, Behaviors and Beliefs, Contextual Characteristics, and Dependencies) as a practical tool for analyzing and strengthening resilience.
  • Effective resilience-building requires moving beyond deficit-based approaches and focusing on locally grounded capacities, prevention, adaptation, and long-term systems change.