A Systems Approach to Building Community Capacity and Resilience

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

It is a very interesting and well developed paper! It could be published as it is but I suggest to add few lines in the conclusion section explaining why it is important to adopt a systemic perspective instead of a "silos" one. Another aspect that should be stressed is the capacity (?!) of policy makers to handle these tools and make a good use of them. It is not a trivial aspect to be addressed.

Author Response

The following statement was added in the conclusion (highlighted in yellow in the text). 

"It should be noted that to be effective, a systems approach to building capacity and resilience requires decision-makers and practitioners involved in community development issues to adopt first a new mindset of systems thinking when working in partnership with other stakeholders [50]."

Reviewer 2 Report

Manuscript Number: HELIYON-D-20-04626R1  

Title: A systems approach to building community capacity and resilience

This article proposes a system dynamics approach to account for the dynamic and adaptive nature of communities for developing capacity-building strategies.

The topic is timely and interesting; however, the paper as is has several shortcomings.

 

Comments

Methods, results, and discussion are presented intermingled.

Although it seems to be interesting to start with the series of global crises, the author did not take up the topic in the concluding parts of the paper, so it seems that this idea does not have any connection to the approach proposed.

The author wrote that “The value proposition of the approach proposed herein is multifold”, but does bring several (ii)´s. I guess this is a mistake? Also, I was not able to find this multifold hypothesis answered in the last part of the manuscript, the one which is usually the discussion section.

Please be more specific on the meaning of small scale developing communities .e.g. regional etc, also on temporal and spatial scales?

In Table 1. It is not clear why some words are in bold.

Please align the tables.

Table 4: please explain abbreviations.

Figure 2. please provide a more professional straightforward presentation.

Figure 3 has a very low resolution.

Figures 13 – 15: the time frame is only vaguely depicted as it should show the variation of the seven categories of capacity over six years (72 months, but it seems that there a ten measurement points. Please stick to a consistent presentation, e.g. development level vs Development Level.

I suggest providing a methods section, where software used etc should be described.

It is not clear why the model is based on the wastewater and sewage service example of Morocco. And, does this approach limit the generalizability of the proposed “findings”?

It is irritating that the author introduced the framework to WASH service delivery in Ethiopia in the conclusion section.

Author Response

All responses to the reviewers have been added highlighted in green in the revised text. Thank you for the review. 

1) Methods, results, and discussion are presented intermingled.

This remark is quite subjective. e all have different ways of writing technical papers. I used an engineering approach in writing this paper.  

2) Although it seems to be interesting to start with the series of global crises, the author did not take up the topic in the concluding parts of the paper, so it seems that this idea does not have any connection to the approach proposed.

I added a few statements in the conclusion to link the conclusion to the introduction. 

3) The author wrote that “The value proposition of the approach proposed herein is multifold”, but does bring several (ii)´s. I guess this is a mistake? Also, I was not able to find this multifold hypothesis answered in the last part of the manuscript, the one which is usually the discussion section.

Now included in the conclusion The two (ii)s have been corrected. Sorry. 

4) Please be more specific on the meaning of small scale developing communities .e.g. regional etc., also on temporal and spatial scales?

I have added a few statements in the text emphasizing that the proposed approach is for small-scale low income communities (e.g. village in Morocco). I have added a statement in the conclusions about the challenges in scaling up the approach to different scales and contexts. 

 

5) Table 1. I added in the caption: " Bold letters apply to the case study being analyzed."

6) All tables have been aligned. 

7) Table 4: abbreviations now explained in the caption

8) Figures 2 and 3 has been improved

9) I have improved all graphs (Figs. 6-15) with consistent presentation

Figure 13-15. The time frame (in months) is clearly indicated. I have added "72 months (six years)" in the captions. I also changed "development" to "Development" in Figure 14. I don't understand the remark about the "tenth point". 

10) Adding a method section?

I added a few sentences on pp. 13. The system dynamics method is described on pp 13 and reference is made to landmark books that describe the method in details. A user interface is also available on the web and is mentioned in the text on pp 15. I have added a statement on pp. 13 that describes the unique feature and value proposition of the Stella software. 

11) The Morocco case study was selected because it was well documented by the authors who created the original capacity analysis. The analysis is not limited to that case study. Comments have been added on pp 6 and pp 21. 

12) Mention of the WASH case study in Ethiopia has been removed. Sorry for the irritation

Reviewer 3 Report

I thank you the Editors for the opportunity to read the paper. My expertise is in business administration and I'm recently researching on participatory governance.

Starting from these assumptions, I deem that the paper fits perfectly with the journal scope. As far as the main questions are concerned, I found the introduction section too expanded. I would suggest to focus on the main concepts to increase its readability. I noticed that references are up-to date but I would suggest to include some more academic references.

Results are clearly presented but they are too detailed as well. Hence I would suggest to make them more intriguing for the readers.

In the same vein, conclusions should clearly state: i) the purpose of the paper, ii) main implications for policy makers, managers and communities, iii) a further research agenda and limitations of the study.

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing the paper. See changes highlighted in yellow and green.

1)  Starting from these assumptions, I deem that the paper fits perfectly with the journal scope. As far as the main questions are concerned, I found the introduction section too expanded. I would suggest to focus on the main concepts to increase its readability. I noticed that references are up-to date but I would suggest to include some more academic references.

I have trimmed down the introduction starting with the global challenges, and emphasizing the need for building community capacity and resilience when addressing these challenges. I used up to date references that in my opinion illustrate the need for the selected approach. References 1-12 are from reputable authors and organizations who are approaching sustainable development in a scientific manner. 

2) Results are clearly presented but they are too detailed as well. Hence I would suggest to make them more intriguing for the readers.

This is a subjective statement. As an engineer, I have a hard time to make models intriguing. 

3) In the same vein, conclusions should clearly state: i) the purpose of the paper, ii) main implications for policy makers, managers and communities, iii) a further research agenda and limitations of the study.

I have added several statements in the conclusions to address 1) to iii)

 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I thank the author for responding to my comments and integrating the requests in the revised version of the manuscript.

 

I further recommend shifting the websites mentioned in the text to the reference list. As for the x axis in the figures, I referred to the discrepancy of a time span of 72 months and 10 “measurement” points in the matrix-like presentation. It is unclear how long one unit is in terms of months etc.

 

Funding: full stop is missing.

 

Reference list: Please check the accessibility of the websites mentioned, as some have been accessed last years ago.

Author Response

Thank you again for your detailed remarks and suggestions. All new changes are in blue

1) In my last paper to Challenges, the web sites were included in the text. I did the same with this paper. I leave it up to the editor to decide. There are three web sites mentioned in the text and they relate directly to the adjoining text.

2) Regarding the graphs and the x-axis. The computer program solves non-linear equations in an incremental manner. The increments are either 0.01 yr or 0.01 month. Thus 800 increments correspond to 8 months and 500 increments correspond to 5 years. Smaller increments would give the same results but would require extra computing time. As an engineer, an increment of 0.01 unit is good enough.

3) "." is added in the funding line.

4) I checked all web sites mentioned in the references and updated them to 2020 dates. Some of the older web sites (2014) had changed. Thank you for catching that.