IPCC_Managing Risks of Extreme Events.pdf - Climate Access

Toward a Sustainable and Resilient FutureChapter 8Box 8-3 | Institutionalized Research and Learning in the Humanitarian SectorAn important attribute of the humanitarian sector is its readiness to learn. Research and learning unfolds at multiple levels, includingsector-wide reviews of performance and practice such as those undertaken by the Active Learning Network for Accountability andPerformance in Humanitarian Action. Research and learning is also structured around the internal needs of organizations (e.g., Red Crossand Red Crescent Societies) or the outcomes of individual events (e.g., the landmark report on humanitarian sector practice followingthe Indian Ocean tsunami (Telford et al., 2006). Organizations have different methodologies, target audiences, and frames of reference,making cross-sector learning difficult (Amin and Goldstein, 2008), but they all have led to practical and procedural changes. Less welldevelopedis active experimentation in the field of practice, with a view of proactive learning (Corbacioglu and Kapucu, 2006). This isdifficult in the humanitarian sector, where stakes are high and rapid action has typically made it difficult to implement learning-while-doingexperiments. Where experimentation may be more observable, for example, in disaster prevention and risk reduction or reconstructionactivities, there are significant gaps in documentation that have slowed down the transferring of learning outcomes between organizations.Hierarchical models of governance have fostered a lack of cooperation and generated competition between agencies within thehumanitarian and development sectors, partly explaining why there is more learning based on the sharing of experience insideorganizations than across sectors (Kapucu, 2009). But the increasing scale and diversity of risk associated with climate change, andcompounded by other development trends such as growing global inequality and urbanization, puts more pressure on donors to promotecross-sector communication of productive innovations and of the research and experimentation such innovation builds upon.action, transfer of knowledge between learning cycles, and the nextlearning loop that will lead to new types of action (List, 2006; Ramos,2006). Referring to the learning processes described in Section 1.4.2,critical reflection is paramount to triple-loop learning; it also constitutesthe key pillar of double-loop learning, or the questioning of what worksand why that is fundamental to shifts in reasoning and behavior (Kolband Fry, 1975; Argyris and Schön, 1978; Keen et al., 2005). Allowing timefor reflection in this iterative learning process is important because itprovides the necessary space to develop and test theories and strategiesunder ever-changing conditions. It is through such learning processesthat individual and collective empowerment can emerge and potentiallybe scaled up to trigger transformation (Kesby, 2005).8.6.3.3. InnovationThe transformation of society toward sustainability and resilienceinvolves both social innovations and technological innovations –incremental as well as radical. Innovation can refer to non-materialchanges related to knowledge, cognition, communication, or intelligence,or it can refer to any kind of material resources. In some cases, smalladjustments in practices or technologies may represent innovative stepstoward sustainability, while in other cases there is a strong need for moreradical transformations. Some of the literature on innovation focuses onensuring economic competitiveness for firms in an increasinglyglobalized economy (Fløysand and Jakobsen, 2010), and someconcentrates on the relationship between environment on the one handand the competitiveness of firms on the other (Mol and Sonnenfeld,2000). In addition, there is a body of social science literature on innovationthat has emerged during the last 15 years, motivated by the need fortransforming society as a whole in more sustainable directions. Recentliterature has brought out new ideas and frameworks for understandingand managing technology and innovation-driven transitions, such asthe Multi Level Perspective (MLP) (Rip and Kemp, 1998; Geels, 2002;Geels and Schot, 2007; Markard and Truffer, 2008). Combining insightsfrom evolutionary theory and sociology of technology, MLP conceptualizesmajor transformative change as the product of interrelated processesoccurring at the three levels of niches, regimes, and landscape. The modelemphasizes the incremental nature of innovation in socio-technicalregimes. Transitions – that is, shifts from one stable socio-technicalregime to another – occur when regimes are destabilized throughlandscape pressures, which provide breakthrough opportunities forniche innovations.In this field of research, there is a strong focus on systems innovationand transformation of socio-technical systems, with the potential offacilitating transitions from established systems for transport, energysupply, agriculture, housing, etc., to alternative, sustainable systems(Geels, 2002; Hoogma et al., 2002; Smith et al., 2005; Raven et al., 2010).The systems innovation literature analyzes the emergence and dynamicsof large-scale, long-term socio-technical transformations (Kemp et al.,1998).Though not directly dependent on changes in technology, technologicaland social innovations are often closely interrelated, not the least inthat they involve changes in social practices, institutions, cultural values,knowledge systems, and technologies (Rohracher, 2008). Box 8-4describes such innovation in water management. A central, basic insightestablished within this research is that social and technological changeis an interactive process of co-development between technology andsociety (Kemp, 1994; Hoogma et al., 2002; Rohracher, 2008). Throughouthistory, new socio-technical systems have emerged and replaced old onesin so-called technological revolutions, and an important characteristic ofsuch transitions is the interactions and conflicts between new, emergingsystems and established and dominating socio-technical regimes, withstrong actors defending business as usual (Kemp, 1994; Perez, 2002).468