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Vulnerability, risk and resilience: Towards a conceptual framework35be ‘gendered victims’, such as women and girls. Other kindsof generic victims exist in cities – for example, streetchildren who may be abused, maimed and even killed bypublic authorities to rid the city of so-called nuisances, or byprivate individuals or gangs who assume that attacking streetchildren can be done with impunity. If these victims arevulnerable to crime and violence, they are also vulnerable toforced evictions and are likely to be the least protectedduring natural disasters. These individuals are, therefore,likely to be cumulatively vulnerable to risks and hazards.FORMS OFINTERDEPENDENCEThe above analysis demonstrates that urban safety andsecurity are dependent upon complicated patterns ofcumulative causation and multiple impacts. An added dimensionto this complexity is a pattern of interdependence, aswell. Distinct spheres of action – social, economic andenvironmental – interact in ways that demonstrate the highdegree of interdependence among them. Indeed, it is thesemyriad forms of interdependence which form a central partof the argument about various forms of resilience andsustainability. 49So far, examples in which social, economic or spatialoutcomes have depended upon multiple factors have beenpresented. These factors have been described as contributingto cumulative causation. The chains of causation,however, do not move only in one direction. For example,the high crime in Mexico City may be, in part, a result ofmacro-economic changes affecting the availability of employment.But high crime, as suggested earlier, also has asignificant cost for the macro-economy and contributes tolow levels of foreign direct investment or tourism. Highcrime at the community level can also reduce the rate ofsavings or asset accumulation of households who have beenrobbed. As a result, they are unable to invest in improvingtheir homes. Therefore, even though their investment ismodest, their victimization by crime has inhibited economicmultipliers within their community. This micro-example isrepeated many times over in countries such as Colombia orEl Salvador, where households may be wary to reveal anywealth for fear of robbery. The causes of insecurity, therefore,may come from different origins.The complexity of these patterns of causationsuggests that simple explanations or single-issue recommendationsto improve urban safety and security are likely to beof limited value. This observation sets up the normativeframework in the following section.PATHWAYS TO RESILIENCEPrevious sections of this chapter have proposed a conceptualframework for understanding the origins, causation andimpacts of the three threats to urban safety and securityaddressed in this report: crime and violence, insecurity oftenure, and disasters. Risk factors underlying these threatshave also been discussed at different geographical andanalytical levels. This discussion has demonstrated thatsingle-cause explanations are insufficient representations ofthe complexity of these phenomena. In normative terms,three arenas have been identified that have the potential toremedy some of the worst impacts of these problems: institutionsand policy, the juridical framework of internationallaw, and civil society and culture.While each of these arenas will be presented in detailin subsequent chapters of this report in relation to each ofthe three threats to urban safety and security, the followingsub-sections suggest that, individually and together, thearenas offer alternative and complementary pathways to theresilience required to alleviate some of the worst impacts ofthese problems. For the purposes of this chapter, as notedearlier, resilience is defined as the capacity to adjust tothreats, to mitigate or avoid harm, and to bounce back fromshocks.Institutions and policyAs suggested in previous sections of this Global Report, onedimension of the urban safety and security challenges requiringdirect attention is the role of institutions. Examples havebeen provided showing how various factors at the global andnational levels have affected national institutions and, inturn, their influence on the capacity of urban and communityinstitutions to respond to these challenges. While it isrelatively easy to identify and document these institutionalimpacts, it is much harder to improve institutional performanceon managing, for example, crime and violence in theshort, medium and even the long term. Indeed, theweakness of urban institutions is itself a vulnerability thatallows these threats to security to be so heavy in their socialand economic impacts in the first place.As noted above, the term ‘institution’ refers to anystructured pattern of behaviour, including ‘informal’ institutionsor behaviours, that communities and households mayuse to maintain their equilibrium in the face of dynamicconditions such as crime and violence or disasters. The valueand utility of this sociological definition of ‘institution’ isillustrated in the following examples. Recent experienceshave demonstrated that in disasters in many countries, suchas after earthquakes in Surat in India and Bursa in Turkey, orin recovery from tsunami-affected areas in India or Sri Lanka,women’s groups are usually the best informed about communityconditions and about the mapping of facilities,households and community hazards. 50 It should not besurprising that they also are effective in determining thepriorities for relief and recovery, as international aid organizationshave now come to recognize and appreciate.The issue of information is critical in this context:normally male-dominated public institutions seek to controlinformation before and after disasters, using such events asopportunities to assert power or to have a privileged claimon the flow of new resources destined for relief and recovery.Women’s groups as informal institutions, therefore,should be central to any mapping of institutional actorsinvolved in maintaining urban safety and security. The importanceof gender in this regard directly contradicts what isThe complexityof … patterns ofcausation suggeststhat simpleexplanations orsingle-issuerecommendations toimprove urbansafety and securityare likely to be oflimited valueResilience is … thecapacity to adjust tothreats, to mitigateor avoid harm, andto bounce back fromshocks