1. Delivering resilient development-friendly climate change adaptation Chair: Dr. Emma Tompkins, Environmental Change Inst., Oxford University, UK Panel members: Dr Emily Boyd (Leverhulme Fellow, Environmental Change Institute, Oxford); Dr Hallie Eakin (Professor of Geography, visiting James Martin 21st Century School Fellow, Environmental Change Institute, Oxford); Dr Polly Ericksen (Science Officer, GECAFS, Environmental Change Institute, Oxford); Dr Henny Osbahr (Research Fellow, Tyndall Centre, Environmental Change Institute, Oxford); Description: This session will examine whether the concept of resilience can be used as a policy tool to deliver effective development-friendly climate change adaptations. The different elements of the resilience framework (self-organising capacity; ability to learn; adaptive capacity and ability to buffer disturbance) will be considered separately and together to determine whether or not they facilitate or constrain development-friendly adaptation. Three case studies will be presented which describe the relative utility of the different elements of resilience as applied to: development in Africa, disaster risk management, and food security. The session will be opened by Dr Emily Boyd who will set the scene and describe the importance and limitations of the key elements of resilience theory. She will consider the compatibility of these elements with the drivers of development (deliberative democracy etc.), as they are nested in the broader national and international policy arena. Dr Henny Osbahr will then consider how the pursuit of agricultural resilience has influenced development in southern Africa, Dr Hallie Eakin will share her experiences of the implications of pursuing a resilience approach in subsistence farming in Mexico. Dr Polly Ericksen will end the session by discussing the implications of panarchy and cross scale linkages in terms of food security in Africa, particularly the conflicts that can arise in pursuing a ‘resilient development’ pathway. Titles of presentations (each no more than 10 mins) • Scene setting - deconstructing the elements of resilience for development (Emily) • Self organisation and learning – compatibility or conflict? How local scale decisions that do not factor in international knowledge of climate futures cannot be resilient (Henny) • Nesting resilient agricultural responses within global complex systems: the challenges and the limits to a resilience approach (Hallie) • Resilient development – is it feasible and desirable for food security? (Polly) Questions to be explored during the discussion: Is a resilient future compatible with global economic growth and development? Does self-organising capacity; ability to learn; adaptive capacity and ability to buffer disturbance contribute to or hinder economic and social development? What are the consequences of applying a resilience approach to development, disaster risk management and food security? What are the limits to a resilience approach? Are there any situations in which resilience can be damaging rather than beneficial? Where are the synergies between adaptation and development and how can the resilience approach be used to maximise these?