Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on collaboration and learning between at risk groups, development practitioners, policymakers and academics. It explores how the 'bricolage' of their relationships influences their way of working together in an effective and sustainable manner to strengthen resilience.

Paper long abstract:

Understanding that sustainable development is a process of co-production, donors are attracted by multi-stakeholder processes and specifically by the consortium as an entity that lifts the burden of managing different grants. Ideally, consortia are synergistic partnerships of multi-disciplinary actors bringing together expertise, experience and coordinated efforts to confront development issues holistically. By focusing on the interplay of stakeholders at different levels, this way of working can create longer-term relationships that ensure the project's sustainability.

This paper explores the role of 'institutional bricolage' (Cleaver, 2012; De Koning and Cleaver, 2015) and the process of co-production of knowledge among a wide range of partners of a consortium.

King's College London has an 'academic research and learning' mandate in two Christian Aid-led consortia, in Burkina Faso and Ethiopia, implementing DfID-funded Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters project. BRACED is designed to tackle vulnerability to climate change by strengthening resilience with the overall purpose of ending extreme poverty, reflecting goal one of the SDGs.

We argue here that the process of 'bricolage' through which preexisting or new, formal or informal institutions are shaped and shape each other is a fundamental part of achieving sustainable results - in particular when talking about climate change adaptation, because of the complex nature of resilience itself. This paper provides insights from BRACED on why and how the consortium context could allow for building sustainable, longer-term relationships among partners, co-producing knowledge and creating or reformulating institutions that bring together policy-makers, government stakeholders, NGOs and beneficiaries.