Building resilience: A meta-analysis of Oxfam’s resilience effectiveness reviews

This research paper uses statistical meta-analysis to summarise the results of all 16 Effectiveness Reviews carried out under the theme of resilience between 2011 and 2015. Oxfam’s Effectiveness Reviews evaluate the impact of the organization’s projects on the lives of those they are intended to help.

The paper finds that projects evaluated had a significant positive impact overall, as measured by an index of contextually-appropriate indicators of resilience. However, there are important differences in impact between different regions of the world. The meta-analysis also reveals a difference in the level of resilience by the gender of the head of household, and provides some insights into the resilience measurement approach.