Abstract
The countries and urban centres of the South African Development Community (SADC) are vulnerable to significant external disturbances, including climate change, global health emergencies, and economic downturns. Regional policy has underlined the need for increased regional resilience in the face of diverse potential future shocks to regional and national systems. Current emphasis is placed on planning interventions to mitigate the impact of climate change, with the creation of the SADC Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan, the Tripartite Programme on Climate Change Mitigation and Adaption (TPCCMA), and the Climate Change Adaption Strategy (CCAS). This has sought to, inter alia, foster resilience of water resources and certain vulnerable economic sectors such as tourism. However, the need for long-term adaptation and adaptability is evident in the face of future public health emergencies, global production disruptions inherent to Industry 4.0, and environmental degradation and associated socio-economic challenges to which the countries and cities of the SADC remain vulnerable. Fostering regional resilience requires place-based interventions planned and implemented by capacitated and informed regional policymakers and supranational institutions. The aim of this study is to analyse current resilience research with reference to the SADC. Objectives include determining the extent of the region-specific body of knowledge and identifying priority areas of future research to support resilience and adaptation to the diverse external disturbances facing the region. The method utilised to achieve the objectives is a systematic bibliometric review of related publications to create network and overlay visualisations of bibliographic data on SADC resilience research. VOSviewer (v1.6.16) is used to analyse and present the findings of the review. Current resilience literature is comprised of three clusters, including climate change, sustainable development, and water resources. In recent years, the focus of research has shifted from the latter to themes associated with disaster risk management and climate change adaptation. Prominent keywords here include sustainability, food security, and integrated water resource management (IWRM). Limited reference is made to economic resilience and related themes in the current research on the region. In addition to a general increase in output, co-occurrence trends highlight the need for a multidisciplinary approach to future research endeavours regarding resilience in the SADC to inform policy makers and supranational institutions.
