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Missing indicators of coping capacity


Indicators of Political Will, Remedial and Coping Capacity? (Part #2)

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There are numerous indicators of the evolving nature of issues with which the world is confronted, especially in developing countries and regions. These notably feature in reports on the "State of the World", the Environment, and the like, as listed separately (Transforming titles of official reports on global processes, 2013). That list is the focus of an argument in favour of dynamic reporting, rather than reinforcing a dangerously static perspective (Dynamic Transformation of Static Reporting of Global Processes: suggestions for process-oriented titles of global issue reports, 2013). Arguably "coping" requires a dynamic perspective -- perhaps to be understood as a second-order perspective. It is not the problem which requires attention but the capacity to respond to it and contain it in some way.

There are numerous indicators of the performance of institutional programmes in response to the range of issues which typically figure in any election manifesto, or in the annual reports of the relevant agencies. Clearly it may indeed be inferred from the disparity between the development of the issues and the performance of the institutional programmes, whether their capacity to "cope" with the issues is adequate to the challenge -- especially if an indication of their foreseeable development into the future is offered.

Unfortunately it is evident that other factors come into play:

  • incompetence in governance and management
  • institutional face-saving and the requirement for upbeat reporting
  • the necessity to cover-up inadequacies and failures to the extent possible, reinforcing highly controversial patterns of lack of transparency -- and their vigorous denial
  • a focus on increasing the resources of a programme or institution, notably with regard to its funding -- and the understandable need to protect them over successive budgetary cycles
  • contextual political factors essentially unrelated to the issues but for which the latter are a feature of horse-trading
  • the questionable manner of appointment of any oversight and expert committee charged with reviewing such matters -- and the resources devoted to that process
  • commercial interest in proposing solutions whose implementation is constrained by licensing arrangements and available funding
  • the role of systemic exploitation and corruption

It is then appropriate to ask whether there is any real insight into the coping capacity of institutions at this time. Framed otherwise, to what extent is any such understanding primarily a feature of optimistic (or negligent) reporting to forestall unwelcome criticism? Especially problematic is whether any review of such capacity is itself credible -- beyond the immediate convenience for political and other purposes. Is the dependence on upbeat reporting inhibiting any challenge to prevailing assumptions, as argued separately (Coping Capacity of Governance as Dangerously Questionable: recognizing assumptions and unasked questions when facing crisis, 2019)?

Rather than through "coping", another approach is through "incompetence" -- a matter which tends to be difficult to highlight, especially in the case of governments and internatioally. To what extent is the incompetence of the United Nations, or other such agencies, a matter of attention -- more particulatly the "international community" (International Community as God or Sorcerer's Apprentice?, 2015):

Striking indications of the challenge are evident in the limited capacity to cope with rising levels of crime, especially in the light of recognition of the existence of organized crime and its various extremes. Indications are regularly offered that the crime clearance rate is highly problematic; police services and the judiciary are explicitly recognized as overwhelmed. Is it naive to claim that authorities cope successfully with urban violence? At the time of writing, there are major ongoing protests and demonstrations in many countries -- variously challengng any capacity of authorities to cope. Other examples are offered by health facilities -- and the long waiting times for treatment. Are lengthening queues to be understood as a measure of "coping" by authorities?

Can it honestly be said that authorities have been able to cope with migration, emerging gang culture, and substance abuse -- even in countries hitherto considered exemplars of development (Paulina Neuding, Bomb attacks are now a normal part of Swedish life, The Spectator, October 2019). The latter argues that gang violence is now at a level where it threatens to undermine the Swedish state. More generally the challenge is indicated by waiting times in a wide variety of arenas -- including democratic voting -- suggestive of the fact that institutional facilities are "stretched" to the point of being essentially "unable to cope".

There is widespread media coverage of the failure of institutions to cope effectively with the problems within their mandate. How indeed to determine whether an institution and its programmes are "fit for purpose"?

It is appropriate to note an early effort to study the capacity of the United Nations system to handle the resources made available by the UNDP. Known as the "Jackson Report", this originated with the UNDP's Inter-Agency Consultative Board and was made by Robert Jackson (A Study of the Capacity of the United Nations Development System, 1969), as discussed at that time (Study of the Capacity of the UN Development System, 1970). Although it is now in all probability too late in the day to consider the question, it might be asked what sense there is now of the coping capacity of the UN or other global programmes -- and where that might be found -- given the accumulating pattern of crises.

A far more recent study for the European Commission by Peter Billing and Ulrike Madengruber (Coping Capacity: towards overcoming the black hole, Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid (ECHO), 2005) presented a quantitative model to measure coping capacity of countries in a comparative perspective towards the elaboration of a Coping Capacity Index. Citing a study to a UNU workshop by Joern Birkmann (Measuring vulnerability and coping capacity, United Nations University, 2004), this noted that:

The notion of coping capacity of populations affected by natural disasters is a key concept in vulnerability assessments. Paradoxically, however, there seem to be few systematic methodological approaches to the subject. In particular, very few - if any - datasets and methodologies actually permit a quantitative approach to compare coping capacity across countries. Such a methodology would be an essential support tool for the design of natural disaster reduction strategies by donor organizations like ECHO.

This offered the definition of coping capacity as: The level of resources and knowledge available in a community and the manner in which people use these resources and abilities to face the adverse consequences of a disaster. This would seem explicitly to exclude, unfortunately, the capacity to cope with non-disastrous situations now so typical of the inability of institutions to cope with that by which they claim to be overwhelmed. It is also curiously focused on the aftermath of disaster and not on the ability to coope with the conditions engendering it.

On the occasion of the same UNU expert workshop, an approach to measurement was offered by Erich Plate (Measuring Vulnerability and Coping Capacity: an Index for Human Security, 2004). One participant, Hans van Ginkel, stressed that: Vulnerability and risk increase with increasing population density. Again it seems to have been concluded that coping capacity is only associated with disaster of some kind, whereas it is clear that significant incapacity is evident in the absence of "disaster" -- and that "vulnerability" is potentially inherent in current modes of organization, readily understood as a disaster-in-making. By contrast, perhaps this merits recognition as "creeping incapacity". Why is it that current understanding of coping capacity requires that a distater be formally declared before the capacity to cope can be considered?

Switching the focus of coping capacity to one of vulnerability to disaster unfortunately enables attention to focus primarily on the well-framed issue of "emergency preparedness". Whilst this avoids insight into the subtly inherent aspects of coping incapacity, the obvious failures of preparedness offer insights in that regard, as argued separately (Enabling Collective Intelligence in Response to Emergencies: illustrated by the case of deep oil spill containment, 2010; Anticipating Future Strategic Triple Whammies -- in the light of earthquake-tsunami-nuclear misconceptions, 2011; Disastrous Floods as Indicators of Systemic Risk Neglect, 2011).

Clearly the current framings do not contribute to the distinction of any remedial capacity -- with which the notion is typically conflated. Stated more clearly, the question is whether such institutions can cope with the problems for which they have a mandate -- without being systematically overwhelmed by them, however subtly -- especially when unable to admit to that fact. Can the problem be "contained" -- irrespective of whether it can be "cured" in any more permanent sense?

Further insight might be obtained from the cybernetic theory of viable systems, but there appears to be little reference to "unviable systems" with which it might be expected that "pre-disaster coping" would be asssociated. There is necessarily a more extensive literature on system failure as a consequence of coping failure (Variety of System Failures Engendered by Negligent Distinctions, 2016). The capacity to "ride out" any emerging crisis seems to be a feature of the literature on "resilient capacity" and "adaptive capcity" (Defining Resilience, Adaptive Capacity, and Vulnerability, InTeGrate, 11 January 2018; Helen Jeans, et al, Absorb, Adapt, Transform: Resilience capacities, Oxfam Policy-Practice, 25 Jan 2017). However, rather than with the capacity to cope with an externally emergent challenge, these possibilities imply a primary focus on systemic survival -- "self-healing" -- rather than with successfully containing externalities.

Insights of relevance to institutions and governance could also be obtained from research on the coping capacity of individuals, as suggested by the following, especially the distinction from any remedial possibility:

The challenge of containment -- whether for institutuions or individuals -- is most notably evident in the case of migration, irrespective of the nature of the challenge of climate change and its related phenomena (floods, wildfires, drought, etc). From a policy science perspective, the question may be understood as to how the current complex of institutions can contain so-called "wicked problems" -- again irrespective of any remedial response. Are such problems to be recogized as exceeding coping capacity -- or is it the inability to remedy the situation which they make evident, namely a failure of remedial capacity?

The deployment of ever increasing measures of surveillance, control and regulation could be claimed as evidence of institutional capacity to cope with complexity. Arguably missing is appropriate recognition of the rate of increase in the complexity of the systems on which viable governance now depends. Succinctly stated, is the challenge of complexity increasing in response to rising population numbers such as to render the coping capacity of authorities ever more problematic and questionable?

On an increasingly resource-challenged planet, are there studies of a change in coping capacity with progressive increase in the number of "mouths-to-field" whether at the household level, nationally, regionally or globally? Seemingly rare examples might include:

The point is more sharply made through a thought experiment highlighting the dilemmas in a context of decreasing resources (Resource Insights from Plus or Minus 12 People on a Liferaft, 2014). More suspect is the strange possibility that in such circumstances governments necessarily find it easier to avoid undue popular protest by effectively enabling population increase rather than restricting it to levels within their coping capacity.

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