World resources 2008 : roots of resilience growing the wealth of the poor

Abstract

World Resources 2008 argues that properly designed enterprises can create economic, social, and environmental resilience that cushion the impacts of climate change, and help provide needed social stability. Increased resilience must be part of the response to the risks of climate change. The efforts that foster resilience chart the first steps on the path out of poverty. World Resource Institute (WRI) identifies those elements without which the achievement of any permanent measure of improvement, of any promise of sustained growth, is greatly diminished. When these factors are present, resourceful and resilient communities can emerge. Resilience is the capacity to adapt and to thrive in the face of challenge. This report contends that when the poor successfully scale up ecosystem-based enterprises, their resilience can increase in three dimensions: they can become more economically resilient, better able to face economic risks. They and their communities can become more socially resilient, better able to work together for mutual benefit. And the ecosystems they live in can become more biologically resilient, more productive and stable. WRI recognize that the concern for poverty extends to the serious problems of urban poverty as well. For this reason, WRI must continue to support responsible industrial development that generates jobs and opportunity, even as it lessens its burden of pollution. Such urban industrial growth has been a significant factor in East Asia's success over the last two decades in reducing poverty.

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