Group Concept Mapping and Equitable Resilience in Southern Africa

The document details a research effort to define equitable resilience in Southern Africa, addressing a gap in literature which has predominantly focused on the Global North. Using Group Concept Mapping (GCM), the study engaged experts from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region to identify key themes of resilience. Despite challenges such as technological barriers and power outages, the research identified nine central clusters: social justice, development, legislation and policies, collaboration and co-creation, capacity building, inclusion and participation, transformative change, preparedness measures, and mitigation and adaptation strategies. The study emphasizes the need for context-specific strategies that account for the region's severe inequality and climate vulnerability.

• The study identified nine key themes that contribute to the conceptualization of equitable resilience in Southern Africa: social justice approaches, development, legislation and policies, collaboration and co-creation, capacity building, inclusion and participation, transformative change, preparedness measures, and mitigation and adaptation strategies.
• Southern Africa is characterized by severe socio-economic disparities, with nearly 45% of the population living on less than one US dollar per day, and is highly vulnerable to climate-related hazards that disproportionately affect marginalized communities.
• Participants' definitions of equitable resilience in the region emphasized cultural concepts like 'ubuntu' interconnectedness, the need for disadvantaged groups to participate collaboratively in responding to challenges, and the necessity of changing power relations within social and economic contexts.
• The application of the Group Concept Mapping (GCM) method in the SADC region faced significant implementation hurdles, including a small pool of local experts, technological difficulties with the GroupWisdom platform on mobile devices, high cognitive demands of the sorting tasks, and frequent power outages known as 'load shedding'.
• The GCM methodology successfully translated abstract concepts into a 9-cluster map, though the small sample size (only 10 participants completed the sorting activity, and 5-6 completed the rating phase) limited the interpretative power of the rating data.

APA

Ferreira, R. ‘., & Davidson, T. (2024). Group Concept Mapping and Equitable Resilience in Southern Africa. Global Resilience Partnership. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/research-summary-brief_04july24.pdf

Chicago

Ferreira, Regardt ‘Reggie’, and Tim Davidson. Group Concept Mapping and Equitable Resilience in Southern Africa. Global Resilience Partnership, 2024. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/research-summary-brief_04july24.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Ferreira |first1=Regardt ‘Reggie’ |last2=Davidson |first2=Tim |title=Group Concept Mapping and Equitable Resilience in Southern Africa |publisher=Global Resilience Partnership |date=2024 |url=https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/research-summary-brief_04july24.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{ferreira2024group, author = {Ferreira, Regardt ‘Reggie’ and Davidson, Tim}, title = {{Group Concept Mapping and Equitable Resilience in Southern Africa}}, institution = {Global Resilience Partnership}, year = {2024}, url = {https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/research-summary-brief_04july24.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }