‘When it floods, we work on our own’: exploring factors influencing collective efficacy appraisals for community-level flood measures among urban informal settlements in Suva, Fiji

More than one billion people worldwide are living in urban informal settlements where flood risks are high. Positive collective efficacy beliefs can facilitate community-level adaptive action. This sub-study of the Revitalizing Informal Settlements and their Environments (RISE) trial, aimed to identify social and contextual factors influencing residents' collective efficacy appraisals about their settlement's ability to implement community-level flood prevention, protection and response measures. Forty-two in-depth interviews were conducted in 10 settlements in Suva, Fiji using a photovoice methodology. Thematic analysis was used to elicit key themes, which were then interpreted and contextualized collaboratively with the local field team. The most salient influencing factors were formal leadership, shared needs or benefits, collective identity (whether via shared religion, ethnicity or regional/kinship group), past performance experiences and expectations around collective action. While the data revealed some between-settlement variation on these factors, there was also a large degree of within-settlement variation concerning perceptions of these factors. Community-based flood programming should not be undertaken without first assessing the degree to which participants believe that programme objectives reflect shared needs or will yield shared benefits and whether those objectives warrant collective action according to the community's social expectations for participation and contribution.