Crisis to Resilience

We want to see communities moving from crisis response to resilience

The communities we serve do not differentiate between the risks they face daily. Floods, drought, violence or pandemic, each crisis results in similar impacts: livelihoods lost, homes destroyed, lack of access to food and markets.

Consequently, this year we developed a new strategic approach to ensure we strengthen communities’ capacity to respond to and recover from emergencies, and become resilient to future shocks.

We equip churches and local partners so that emergency responses are as locally led as possible and contextually appropriate. At the heart of this collaborative approach is partnership, mutual learning, resilience and a mindset of hope. Where necessary, we also work directly through our own operational programmes, currently in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Central African Republic.

In 2022/23, we’ve responded to devastating climate-related disasters and communities facing violence and destruction, including the Ukraine conflict, Turkey-Syria earthquake, Pakistan floods, an earthquake and flooding in the Philippines, the East Africa hunger crisis, a hurricane in Nicaragua and cyclones in southern Africa.

We hold ourselves accountable to people affected by disasters, ensuring clear channels of communication so that communities can participate fully and give feedback. We coordinate with networks and peers within the humanitarian sector to ensure best practice across our work.

What we learnt

In Ukraine, we were able to adapt our systems to mobilise and support smaller community organisations and churches, who were part of our networks but not existing partners, to provide swift assistance in an environment of active conflict. This allowed a robust and contextually appropriate approach. We are investigating how we use this learning to be better prepared to respond to similar crises.

We know we can go further

Tearfund’s 2022 Mid-term Audit for the Core Humanitarian Standard highlighted improvement in country teams’ and partners’ ability to deliver high-quality, effective and accountable assistance. We continue to require our staff to ask communities how they prefer to share feedback or submit sensitive complaints. However, we need to be more systematic in how we consult communities on the design of complaints-handling processes and feedback mechanisms.

Going forward in 2023/24 We aim to:

• strengthen local churches and communities so they are prepared for crises and can demonstrate their ability to be inclusive first responders
• deliver holistic responses which go beyond meeting immediate needs, to strengthen resilience and nurture hope
• build the participation of faith actors in disaster response and preparedness, to increase their capacity in coordination and decision-making, as well as wider recognition of the distinctive and important role they play