Beyond the paradox: Rethinking vulnerability and resilience in policy in island nations
When: 23 October 2025 | 14:40-15:50
Format: Breakout session
Policymakers working at the intersection of climate, peace, and security often face a paradox: reduce vulnerability or build resilience. In practice, resilience often emerges from vulnerability, where communities' cultural, legal, and spiritual foundations as well as their deep relationship with land and other resources, shape how they adapt to shocks. Recognising these dynamics is essential for designing effective policy.
This panel will explore how actionable tools such as how digital early warning systems, financial risk-transfer mechanisms, and governance frameworks can be strengthened when they are rooted in identity, land or sea-based practices as well as lived realities. Drawing on lessons from regions as varied as the Pacific, the Sahel and South Asia, panelists will illustrate how territorial ties, legal frameworks, cultural practices, and spiritual traditions determine not only the effectiveness but also the legitimacy of coping strategies.
The discussion will focus on practical steps governments, donors, and technology partners can take to:
Integrate local identity into climate adaptation planning,
Deploy financial and digital innovations that communities trust and recognise as relevant to their lived realities, and
Bridge institutional gaps that undermine resilience disconnect formal policy from grounded, place-based resilience.
Participants will leave with concrete insights and replicable approaches for building adaptive capacity in fragile environments. Designed for practitioners, this session moves beyond theory to showcase what works in practice - offering tools and strategies that can be applied directly to current policy and program design.
More details following soon
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