Measuring Resilience in Marginalised Urban Communities: A South African Township Pilot Study

RABIT Working Paper no.1

33 Pages Posted: 7 Apr 2021

See all articles by Justin Haley

Justin Haley

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Richard Heeks

The University of Manchester

Jean-Paul Van Belle

University of Cape Town (UCT)

Date Written: April 6, 2021

Abstract

Marginalised urban communities need to build their resilience to environmental and social shocks and stressors. A first step in this process will be measuring the existing resilience strengths and weaknesses of such communities. Past approaches to this can appear constrained in their understanding of resilience, or may not convert resilience frameworks into quantified measures. This paper reports an initial pilot application of the RABIT (Resilience Benchmarking Assessment and Impact Toolkit) framework, which conceives resilience as nine attributes each with measurable markers. The framework was used to measure resilience of Masiphumelele, a South African township of formal and informal housing regularly disrupted by flood, fire, storms and violence. It found resilience strengths in self-organisation and scale of external connections; but weaknesses in robustness and equality. While the community is relatively good at the coping aspects of resilience such as response and recovery to shocks, it is poor at withstanding shocks and at transforming itself. The pilot drew from only a small evidence base; showed limited consideration of context, agency and power; and did not actualise the framework’s potential for identifying community resilience-building priorities. Future use of the framework could therefore seek to expand the size, scope and levels of its application.

Keywords: resilience, urban, marginalised communities, informal settlements, South Africa

Suggested Citation

Haley, Justin and Heeks, Richard and Van Belle, Jean-Paul, Measuring Resilience in Marginalised Urban Communities: A South African Township Pilot Study (April 6, 2021). RABIT Working Paper no.1, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3821218 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3821218

Justin Haley

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Richard Heeks (Contact Author)

The University of Manchester ( email )

Oxford Road
Manchester, N/A M13 9PL
United Kingdom

Jean-Paul Van Belle

University of Cape Town (UCT) ( email )

3rd Floor, leslie Commerce Building
Engineering Mall, Upper Campus
Cape Town, Western Cape 8000
South Africa

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
147
Abstract Views
824
Rank
406,997
PlumX Metrics