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The risks of natural hazards such as flooding, earthquakes, tsunami, landslides, tornado, coastal erosion and volcano are apparent in Auckland because of its vulnerability to multiple risks. The coping capacity of individuals serves as a precursor to the adaptation to inherent challenges. The purpose of this paper was to examine the coping capacity of the South African community in Auckland to a disaster event.

This study gathered information from both primary and secondary sources. Interviews and survey were the main sources of primary data. The research used parametric and non-parametric statistical tools for quantitative data analysis, and the general inductive process and a three-step coding process to analyse qualitative data. The research findings are discussed in line with existing studies.

The results indicated that the aggregate coping capacity of the community was above average on the scale of 1-5 with communication and economic domains having the highest and least capacities, respectively. An improvement in disaster response activities and economic ability among the vulnerable population should be considered in future policy to enhance coping capacity.

The study was limited to the time of the investigation. The practical coping capacity of the community during challenges will be determined. This study excludes the roles of institutions and the natural environment in coping capacity because the unit of analysis was the individual members of the community.

The research is a pioneer study on the coping capacity of the South African community in Auckland.

The field study aimed at exploring how capacities are influenced by external factors in the context of community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR).

The field study was conducted in a small rural area called Lapsibot in Lamjung district in Nepal. The article is based on a fieldwork conducted in April 2018. The different tools of data collection were inspired by the vulnerability and capacity assessment approach with a focus on various aspects of vulnerabilities and capacities with regard to disaster risk reduction (DRR) in Lapsibot.

The paper highlights that communities, in fact, need enhanced and extended capacities, not only existing inherent capacities, which are usually the main subject of capacity development in rural communities.

While there is absolutely no question of strong capacities at the community level, this paper appeals for a more in-depth investigation of an extended notion of capacities, where the effects of the rapid changes and increasing impact of the outside world are taken into consideration.

Although the value of community capacity building is widely accepted within scholarly literature, these initiatives thus far appear to have achieved very little impact in the achievement of community development aspirations. This paper aims to increase knowledge regarding specific priority areas which when targeted will result in more effective pathways towards sustainable development.

This study was performed through utilization of a qualitative strategy, which involved the combination of a number of qualitative methods and techniques including individual interviews, surveys, focus groups, literary review and policy analysis.

The investigation found that improving identified CSD priority areas, aligned with the sustainable development goals (SDGs), seems to be the most effective strategy to enhance the ability of local communities to overcome sustainability challenges over time. SDGs 9, 4, 15, 16, 17 and 8 were identified as the areas of greatest significance for practical community capacity building for sustainable development (CSD).

This paper answers scholarly literature’s call for greater investigation into bringing sustainability research closer to society, to clearly define research direction and agenda. It also recommends ways to action the global goals locally.

The purpose of this paper is to present an extensive household survey amongst four rural communities on Mt. Elgon Kenya. The area is the chosen area for the author’s overall PhD research. In order to offer the inhabitants of Mt. Elgon suitable housing support, the purpose of this paper is to assess the gap between existing housing capacities and compare those to desired housing capacities.

The research combined a survey method with an interview setting. The survey helps the interviewer to structure and register given answers. The interview allows the inhabitant to ask questions or make suggestions.

The research finds that the two communities with financial restraints are unable to articulate improved housing (within their existing capacities) without external help. For the two communities with less financial restraints, the research finds that they struggle to maintain, extend or replicate housing solutions without external help.

The size (200 households), type (purpose, design and approach) and locality of the research are uncommon frameworks to understand inhabitants’ needs toward their built environment. The value, therefore, not only lies in the design of the evaluation framework, but also in the findings that indicate that this is a successful way to conduct this type of research in a vulnerable context. Hopefully providing other researchers in the built environment with an applicable framework.

The purpose of this paper is to determine opportunities, resources, and capacity building supports that enable volunteer capacity to participate in localized health planning processes.

A case study methodology is employed in this study. A range of qualitative research methods including focus groups, individual interviews, observation and document analysis is used to gather detailed data about the experience of the health volunteers. They engage in an in‐depth analysis of this experience. A thematic analysis of volunteer accounts informs the explanation of the case and the study findings.

The development of partnerships between health systems and communities is advocated as a means of enhancing overall community capacity to address priority health concerns, and to reduce escalating health care costs and inequities. The process of building health partnerships is complex, requiring extensive assessment of both health system and community readiness. Health volunteers have many capacities well suited to collaborative activity; these are more likely to find expression when barriers are minimized and facilitative conditions are maximized. The study finds that dialogue is a key mechanism for assessing community and system readiness, and for building trust and mutual understanding in such health partnerships. This case study introduces facilitated dialogue as a mechanism for assessing volunteer readiness and timely capacity building resources and supports, in line with the developmental needs of volunteers. Assessing health system readiness involves consideration of health system goals and definitions of participation, and overall commitment to developing and resourcing this kind of system‐wide change where the outcomes are longer term in nature. This commitment entails training of health professionals in the relevant health promotion knowledge and skills. This extends to mobilizing, nurturing, and supporting volunteer capacity to work with the health system to make informed decisions about the health needs of their community.

A health system perspective on this question should be explored to identify other complex challenges associated with managing this kind of system‐wide change.

The paper provides detailed insights into the experience of health volunteers in a health planning context. These insights potentially inform concrete strategies for assessing community strengths and readiness, and for minimizing barriers to volunteer participation, particularly in a rural context.

The paper provides insights about how health system structure and environmental processes can be adapted to create an environment conducive to community participation.

Time banking is a form of alternative consumer market where members trade services, non-reciprocally creating a local marketplace for services. Time Banks facilitate dyadic exchanges, meeting members’ practical needs and building diverse skills. The purpose of this research was to determine the broad capabilities developed in the Time Bank economy, and to demonstrate how these capabilities were mobilised following a series of earthquakes, contributing to the larger community’s resiliency.

Taking an ethnographic approach, data were collected using a variety of methods including interviews, focus groups, participant observation and secondary research.

Over time, this alternative consumer market developed a significant communication and social network that members activated to solve diverse practical problems facing the community. Similar to other exchange communities, the Time Bank also fostered a strong sense of community based on reciprocity and egalitarian values. Although the Time Bank was created as a marketplace to exchange local services, during a series of devastating earthquakes, it galvanised adaptive capacities, increasing the resiliency of the local community during disaster relief and reconstruction.

The data were drawn from one alternative exchange system in New Zealand.

The study shows how grassroots alternative consumer markets like Time Banks build community capacities alongside the formal economy. During normal times, this system meets consumer needs, but in extraordinary times, this system provides community shock absorbers, thereby enhancing community resiliency.

The Time Bank was particularly adept at leveraging local knowledge to provide social support to those residents who were most vulnerable.

Data were collected before, during, and after the earthquakes, providing a rare opportunity to explore the process of community resiliency in action. This research extends existing theories of community resiliency explaining the development and activation of capacities by a local alternative consumer market.

The purpose of this paper is to look at immigrant family business through the framework of social capital by investigating how the social capital of immigrant family business owners helps them obtain network benefits and improve business performance.

This paper presents an empirical investigation of 170 immigrant family business owners. The authors examine social capital as a multidimensional construct and focus on two attributes of social capital: structural embeddedness and relational embeddedness. In addition, this study examines how social capital influences business performance through the mediating effect of network benefits. Finally, the constructs of family capital and immigrant community capacity are also investigated.

The results suggest that the two attributes of social capital differed in their effects on network benefits, and that network benefits mediated the influence of social capital attributes on family business performance. Specifically, relational social capital influenced access to resources and information, and structural social capital influenced access to resources. Family ties affected network benefits and business performance, and immigrant community capacity had the predicted moderating effect on the relationship between immigrant community ties and network benefits.

This investigation has the potential to advance understanding of immigrant family businesses by assessing how the overall social capital of the family business owner influences business performance. The study also furthers the understanding of family capital and immigrant community capacity. In addition, these results serve practitioners by helping identify avenues to increase immigrant family business performance, an issue that is increasingly important today given the contribution of such businesses to the economic vitality of societies.

This paper aims to present a case study-based approach to identify resource-poor communities with limited abilities to cope with the adverse effects of climate change. The study area is the Nkonkobe Local Municipality, in the Eastern Cape which is one of South Africa’s provinces ranked as being extremely vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change because of high incidences of poverty and limited access to public services such as water and education. Although adaptive capacity and vulnerability assessments help to guide policy formulation and implementation by identifying communities with low coping capacities, policy implementers often find it difficult to fully exploit the utility of these assessments because of difficulties in identifying vulnerable communities. The paper attempts to bridge this gap by providing a user-friendly, replicable, practically implementable and adaptable methodology that can be used to cost-effectively and timeously identify vulnerable communities with low coping capacities.

A geostatistical approach was used to assess and evaluate adaptive capacities of resource-poor communities in the Nkonkobe Local Municipality. The geospatial component of this approach consisted of a multi-step Geographical Information Systems (GIS) based technique that was improvised to map adaptive capacities of different communities. The statistical component used demographic indicators comprising literacy levels, income levels, population age profiles and access to water to run automated summation and ranking of indicator scores in ArcGIS 10.2 to produce maps that show spatial locations of communities with varying levels of adaptive capacities on a scale ranging from low, medium to high.

The analysis identified 14 villages with low adaptive capacities from a total of 180 villages in the Nkonkobe Local Municipality. This finding is important because it suggests that our methodology can be effectively used to objectively identify communities that are vulnerable to climate change.

The paper presents a tool that could be used for targeting assistance to climate change vulnerable communities. The methodology proposed is of general applicability in guiding public policy interventions aimed at reaching, protecting and uplifting socio-economically disadvantaged populations in both rural and urban settings.

The approach’s ability to identify vulnerable communities is useful because it aids the identification of resource-poor communities that deserve priority consideration when planning adaptation action plans to deliver support and assistance to those least capable of effectively coping with the adverse effects of climate change induced vulnerabilities.

The Philippines is among the countries vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change. However, many local government units (LGUs) and the people themselves are not aware of the climate change phenomenon and do not have the capacity to undertake appropriate climate change adaptation measures. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the climate change adaptation strategies of communities and LGUs and the barriers and recommendations to enhance their adaptive capacity.

The study covered five communities vulnerable to climate change impacts. Information on extreme climatic events and their impacts and adaptation strategies undertaken were gathered through focus group discussions (FGDs) and key informant interviews. LGU staff members were assisted in the preparation of their climate change adaptation plan (CCAP).

The LGUs and communities have low adaptive capacity and employed temporary adaptation strategies. Strong social cohesion and spontaneous collective action are factors that could enhance the communities' adaptive capacity. The pursuit of awareness raising and capacity building activities on climate change phenomena, alternative livelihood, preparedness and adaptation possibilities, technology and infrastructure development and collective action, which are critical adaptive capacity enhancement factors were laid‐out in the CCAP.

The paper presents the barriers that constrain the adaptive capacity of communities and LGUs, the recommended adaptive capacity enhancement measures to overcome these barriers and the highlights of the CCAP jointly prepared by the partner LGUs and scientists.

The purpose of this paper is to describe Karen refugee women’s experience of resettlement and the factors which structured community capacity to support their mental health and well-being.

A postcolonial and feminist standpoint was used to bring Karen women’s voice to the knowledge production process. Data were collected through ethnographic field observation, in-depth semi-structured individual and focus group interviews with Karen women as well as healthcare and social service providers.

Three interrelated themes emerged from the data: Karen women’s construction of mental health as “stress and worry”; gender, language and health literacy intersected, shaping Karen women’s access to health care and social resources; flexible partnerships between settlement agencies, primary care and public health promoted community capacity but were challenged by neoliberalism.

Karen women and families are a diverse group with a unique historical context. Not all the findings are applicable across refugee women.

This paper highlights the social determinants of mental health for Karen women and community responses for mitigating psychological distress during resettlement.

Public health policy requires a contextualized understanding of refugee women’s mental health. Health promotion in resettlement must include culturally safe provision of health care to mitigate sources of psychological distress during resettlement.

This research brings a postcolonial and feminist analysis to community capacity as a public health strategy.