Drought Resilience Facilitation and Leadership Framework

About the project

Drought resilience for social-ecological sustainability and social well-being requires sustained investment and strategic effort from governments, industries as well as urban, regional and rural communities.  As noted in the Goulburn Murray Resilience Strategy: “There is very clear evidence that communities with strong social capital and capacity to self-organise suffer less during shocks and disasters and recover faster.” (Greater Shepparton Regional Council 2020, p. 11).  Research shows that resilience planning tools and approaches enhance social resilience (Ayre and Nettle 2017; Selberg et al. 2015), however regional communities need leadership and facilitation capacity to implement them. Where does this capacity come from and what social assets and infrastructure are needed to sustain it?

This Drought Resilience Facilitation and Leadership Framework (the Framework) is designed to identify, build, and sustain community capacity to lead and implement strategic resilience planning and action. It has been developed in collaboration with the Victorian Drought Hub network, Agriculture Victoria, and two leading Victorian community organisations.

The Framework addresses a critical gap in current drought resilience planning and action by adding new facilitation and leadership training activities and tools to respond to the challenges of drought in Victorian communities.

The activities and tools in the Drought Resilience Facilitation and Leadership Framework outline steps that community members can themselves apply to co-develop and lead drought resilience from the “bottom-up”.

Download the framework here