For managers, a first step is to clearly define a geographic area in which community resilience is strategically relevant, and to explore the social and ecological dynamics in that area. Focusing on a particular geographical area is important because resilience is determined by local context, and because it helps you identify the right partners.
Often a partnership for resilience arises because a business has identified risks or opportunities for its own business within communities in which they operate or those of their suppliers or customers.
Because enhancing community resilience is a complex ambition, you should take time to explore the needs of the focal area. This involves conversations with diverse role-players to consider questions such as:
Our case study examples show the importance of working with other organisations in this exploration process:
During the 2000s, Santam managers noted growing insurance claims from customers in the Eden District in South Africa's Western Cape Province due to fires and floods caused by extreme weather events, the intensity and frequency of which were increasing due to climate change. They decided to focus attention on this area but they realised that they had no obvious response to growing climate risks. So, they embarked on a process of exploring the area in a collaboration with social and natural scientists to better understand why risks were increasing in the area and what might be done in response.
Managers at Woolworths realised that water security is becoming an increasing risk for the company's suppliers of fresh produce, and studies showed that this is especially so in the Ceres valley and surrounding areas in the Western Cape Province, where many fruit suppliers are located. Working with WWF-SA and a number of other partners, the managers initially worked with farmers to explore ways to increase these farms' water efficiency. This work showed that many farmers are already implementing sophisticated water efficiency measures and that the bigger problems are elsewhere, beyond the farm boundaries. In conjunction with farmers and others, Woolworths managers thus explored the area to better understand water risks at a catchment level.
At Nedbank, managers realised that their success in enrolling and maintaining customers in small towns depended on the towns' economic and social prospects. The town of Magaliesburg, about an hour's drive from Johannesburg, was emblematic of this. It relied on agriculture and tourism, but these sectors had been weakening and businesses in the town were struggling. Managers thus focused on this town and they explored the area with the support of a community development organisation, Ranyaka, to better understand how they might support community resilience.
AngloGold Ashanti has had a long history of supporting local communities in the Eastern Cape Province, from where many of the companies' migrant workers have traditionally come. This has been an important signal of the company's commitment to these workers and their families, and it has also become important due to the South African government's expectation that mining companies contribute to local economic development in so-called labour-sending areas, which are often characterised by severe poverty and unemployment. They identified a particular area, the eMalangeni District of the Eastern Cape Province, as particularly important and engaged in comprehensive discussions with various local role-players, including the local government and traditional leaders, to better understand how they might contribute to the area.