How is community resilience defined by the Red Cross?

The definition of community resilience by the Red Cross focuses on a community’s ability to withstand and recover from crises or disasters. This highlights the importance of not just enduring adverse events but also the capability of bouncing back and rebuilding afterward. Community resilience encompasses various aspects, including social cohesion, access to resources, preparedness, and adaptive capacity, which collectively enable communities to respond effectively to emergencies, ensuring their long-term sustainability and development.

In contrast, economic growth rate, population size, and the total number of community services do not comprehensively address the community's overall capacity to deal with crises. These factors may influence resilience, but they do not capture the essence of how a community can withstand and recover from disasters, which is central to the Red Cross's concept of resilience.