The Sustainable Livelihoods

Framework
• It’s ONE WAY of “organising” the complex
issues surrounding POVERTY
• It’s NOT the ONLY WAY
• It needs to be:
o Modified
o Adapted
o Made appropriate to local circumstances
o Made appropriate to local priorities

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 Why an ‘approach’?

It’s about trying to see development

standing in the shoes of the poor

not from the shoes of:

the ‘expert’ or
the ‘service delivery manager’

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'A livelihood comprises the
capabilities, assets (including both
material and social resources) and
activities required for a means of
living. A livelihood is sustainable
when it can cope with and recover
from stresses and shocks and
maintain or enhance its capabilities
and assets both now and in the
future, while not undermining the
natural resource base'
(Chambers, R. and G. Conway, 1992).

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 Livelihood Job
"A livelihood, on the "A job connotes one
other hand, is particular activity or
engagement in a trade that is
number of activities performed in
which, at times,
exchange for payment.
neither require a
formal agreement nor
It is also a formal
are limited to a agreement, as
particular trade. manifested by a
Livelihoods may or contract, between an
may not involve employer and
money. Jobs invariably employee...... . A job
do. Livelihoods are can, however,
self-directing. .... . comprise part of an
Livelihoods are based overall livelihood, but
on income derived does so only to
from "jobs", but also
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 What is a livelihood?
• A livelihood comprises
-- the capabilities,
– assets (material and social)
– activities
required for a means of living.

• Not just the means to survive

but the capability to thrive

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 The Sustainable Livelihood
Framework -1
Is simply a tool to help:
o plan new development/adaptation
initiatives
o assess the contribution to livelihood
sustainability made by existing
activities

It:
o provides a checklist of relevant issues
o highlights what influences what
o emphasizes the multiple interactions
that affect people’s livelihoods
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 The Sustainable Livelihood
Framework -2
Helps us think holistically about:
o The things that poor rural
households might be very
vulnerable to
o The assets and resources that help
them thrive and survive
o The policies and institutions that
impact on their livelihoods
o How they respond to threats of
climate change
o What sort of adaptation strategies
are open to them
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 Principles of SLA
• People-centered: beginning by understanding
peoples’ priorities and livelihood strategies.
● Responsive and participatory: responding to
the expressed priorities of poor people.
● Multi-level: ensuring micro-level realities inform
macro-level institutions and processes.
● Conducted in partnership: working with
public, private and civil society actors.
● Sustainable: environmentally, economically,
institutionally, and socially.
● Dynamic: ensuring support is flexible and process-
oriented, responding to changing livelihoods.
● Holistic: reflecting the integrated nature of people’s
lives and diverse strategies.
Building on strengths: while addressing
vulnerabilities.

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 Principles -1
• People at the centre

• Holistic analysis
– Not supply driven

• Asset-based analysis
– Build on inherent potential
– Not on weaknesses and gaps

• Focus on outcomes (results)

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 Principles -2
If people are at ‘the centre’,
it affects the way services are delivered

• Participatory
– Involves users directly

• Responsive
– Flexible and dynamic

• Multi-agency
– ‘Joined-up’ work (Integration)
– Partnerships

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 ‘PIPS’ effectively
determine:
• access (to various types of capital, to
livelihood strategies and to decision-making
bodies and sources of influence)
• the terms of exchange between different
types of capital
• returns (economic and otherwise) to any given
livelihood strategy.
Without a pro-poor and supportive
enabling environment, interventions
have little impact

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 SLA and RBA:
Complimentary?
• Rights-based perspective:
• focuses on linkages between public
institutions and civil society and,
particularly, on
• how to increase the accountability of
public institutions to all citizens.
• The livelihoods approach,
• takes as its starting point a need to
understand the livelihoods of poor
people in context.
• also recognizes the importance of these
rights and of enhancing accountability
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 Principles -3
• Focus on institutions
– the ‘rules of the game’
– ‘voice’ and ‘choice’
– rights, entitlements, inclusion
– multi-level consistency
– ‘micro-macro’ linkages
Focus on sustainability

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 Livelihoods assets
Human
Capital

Social Natural
Capital Capital
The Poor

Physical Financial
Capital Capital
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The SL
Framework Livelihood
Outcomes
• + Sustainable
Livelihood use of NR base
Capital • + Income
Assets • + Well-being
• - Vulnerability
Human • + Food
security

Social Natural

Policies &
Institutions Livelihood
Government Strategies
Physica Financi
l al Socio-Cultural

Vulnerability
Context

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Sustainable Livelihoods
Framework

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Focussing on the poor

The
Poor

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 Livelihood Assets
Personal

Social
Human

The
Poor
Financial Physical

Natural

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Unpacking Policies and
Institutions

Enabling Service
agencies providers

Personal
Social
Human
The
Poor
Financial
Physical

Natural

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 Unpacking “Processes”

Enabling Service
agencies providers

Personal
Social
Human
The
Poor
Financial
Physical

Natural

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An Envelope of Action

Enabling Service
agencies providers

Personal
Social
Human
The
Poor
Financial
Physical

Natural

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Strong Envelope – People Less Vunerable

Enabling Service
agencies providers

Personal
Social
Human
The
Poor
Financial
Physical

Natural

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Weak Envelope – People More Vulnerable

Enabling Service
agencies providers

Personal
Social
The Human
Poor
Financial
Physical
Natural

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24
Enabling Service
agencies providers

Personal
Social
Human
The
Financial Poor
Physical

Natural

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 The five Capitals /Assets

Assets/
Examples
Capitals
Human: Skills, Knowledge, Information, Ability to work,
Health
Financial: Savings, Credit, Remittances, Pensions

Social: Networks, Groups, Trust, Access to services

Built: Transport, Shelter, Water, Energy

Natural: Land, Water, Wildlife, Biodiversity, Environment,

Solar

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 The five capitals

Human capital - skills, knowledge & info., ability to

work, health

Natural capital - land, water, wildlife, biodiversity,

environment

Financial capital - savings, credit, remittances,

pensions

Physical capital - transport, shelter, water, energy,

comms

Social capital - networks, groups, trust, access to

institutions

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 Social Capital - Issues
• Much debate centers on the concept of social
capital – one of the key terms in the
development lexicon and the missing link in
development ‘the glue that holds society
together’
• Concept attributed to Putnam who identifies
three elements of social relations
– Interpersonal trust, networks and shared
norms
• Where these elements function well they
enable people to act together more effectively,
make decisions, formulate policy and gain
access to power and resources
• Proposed that the major obstacle of economic
and social development in the ‘third world’ is
ineffective institutions
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 Social capital - critique
• Key critiques of Putnam’s approach are
that it
– Devalues political civil society –
concentrates on ‘apolitical’ institutions
– Romanticizes associational life
– Deterministic – “path dependent
development” – you either have social
capital or you don’t.
– A repackaging of what social scientists have
studied for years with new terms
• social capital equals “Bankspeak”, a
term designed to neutralize and obscure
problems and relations of power (Harriss
and Fine)

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 Counterpoints
• Hilary argues that the concept of
social capital exposes the limitations
of conventional economic approaches
for understanding economic and social
processes

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 What is a sustainable
livelihood?
A livelihood is sustainable when it can:

– cope with and recover from stresses and

shocks
– maintain or enhance its capabilities and
assets both now and in the future,

– while not undermining the natural resource

base.

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 Livelihood Strategies
What do people do?

• Natural-resource based
• Non-NR / off-farm activities
• Migration / remittances
• Pensions and grants
• Intensification vs. diversification
• Short-term vs. long-term

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 Livelihood outcomes
What people are trying to achieve
with their assets and strategies
Categories of livelihood outcome
• More income
• Increased well-being
• Reduced vulnerability
• Improved food security
• More sustainable use of the natural
resource base

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 Livelihood Outcomes
What are people seeking to achieve?

• More sustainable use of the NR base

• More income
• Increased well-being
• Protect rights
• Recover dignity
• Reduced vulnerability
• Improved food security
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 Human Capital
• Health
• Nutrition
• Education
• Knowledge and skills
• Capacity to work
• Capacity to adapt

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 Natural Capital
• Land and produce • Wild foods & fibres

• Water & aquatic • Biodiversity

resources

• Trees and forest • Environmental

products services

• Wildlife

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 Social Capital
• Networks and connections
o patronage
o neighbourhoods
o kinship
• Relations of trust and mutual support
• Formal and informal groups
• Common rules and sanctions
• Collective representation
• Mechanisms for participation in
decision-making
• Leadership

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 Physical Capital
• Infrastructure
• transport - roads, vehicles, etc.
• secure shelter & buildings
• water supply & sanitation
• energy
• communications
• Tools and techology
• tools and equipment for production
• seed, fertiliser, pesticides
• traditional technology

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 Financial Capital
• Savings

• Credit/debt - formal, informal, NGOs

• Remittances

• Pensions

• Wages
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 The Asset Mix
• Different households with different
access to livelihood
“assets/capital”

• Livelihoods affected by:

o diversity of assets
o amount of assets
o balance between assets

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 Human capital

So…….. • labour capacity

• no education
Landless • limited skills
female Natural capital
agricultural • landless
labourer • access to common property resources
Financial capital
Human
Capital • low wages
• no access to credit
Physical capital
Social Natural • poor water supply
Capital Capital • poor housing
• poor communications
Social capital
Physical Financial • low social status
Capital Capital • descrimination against women
• strong links with family & friends
• traditions of reciprocal exchange
= an extremely reduced “livelihood
pentagon”
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Understanding vulnerability
• Moser characterizes vulnerability as
insecurity in the well being of individuals,
households or communities in the face of a
changing environment
– Because people move in and out of
poverty the concept of vulnerability
better captures processes of change
that poverty line measures

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Understanding vulnerability
• Chambers observes that
vulnerability has two sides
– An external side of risks, shocks
and stress
– An internal side of
defencelessness due to lack of
means to cope with damaging
loss

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 “Vulnerability” Context
• Shocks
– Floods, droughts, cyclones
– Deaths in the family
– Violence or civil unrest
• Seasonality
• Trends and changes
– Population
– Environmental change
– Technology
– Markets and trade
– Globalisation

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 Vulnerability Context
The external environment in which people exist

Shocks - illness,death in the family, disaster-

floods,droughts,cyclones, economic, conflict-violence or
civil unrest, crop / livestock pests & diseases

Stresses – long term trends that undermine livelihood

potential: population, environment-declining natural
resource base, climate change, markets and trade-
inflation, currency devaluation, structural unemployment,
poor governance, globalisation etc

Seasonality- prices, production, health, employment

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“Vulnerability” Context
H

Vulnerability
S N
Context
Shocks The Poor
Seasonality
Trends
Changes

P F

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 Policies, Institutions & Processes
• of government
• Policies • of different LEVELS of government
• of NGOs
• of interational bodies

• political, legislative & representative bodies

• Institutions • executive agencies
• judicial bodies
• civil society & membership organisations
• NGOs
• law, money
• political parties
• commercial enterprises & corporations

• the “rules of the game”

• Processes • decision-making processes
• social norms & customs
• gender, caste, class
• language
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 Policies, Institutions & Processes

H
Vulnerability
Context N
S Policies
Shocks The Poor influence Institutions
Seasonality
Trends Processes
Changes P F

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 Livelihood Strategies
Combining:
• the assets they can access

Taking account of:

• the vulnerability context

Supported or obstructed by:

• policies, institutions and processes.

………..………..leading to

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 Livelihood Outcomes
Poverty - a “poor” livelihood outcome:

• based on a fragile or unbalanced set of livelihood

assets

• unable to sustain to shocks, changes or trends

• not supported, or actively obstructed by policies,

institutions and processes that do not allow assets
to be used as they might

• livehood options combined in a “bad” or

unsustainable strategy

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 The Sustainable Livelihoods
Framework

H
Vulnerability
Context
Shocks S N Policies Livelihood Livelihood
Seasonality The Poor influence Institutions Strategies Outcomes
Trends Processes
Changes
P F

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 Uses
• A guide for people in the analysis of development
practice and issues
• Encourages discussion and probing
• Not necessarily easier to explain but more
complete
• Specifically identifies many features – politics,
rules, social norms, gender/age/class/ethnic issues –
that will help make it more culture specific
• Still not a magic bullet!

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 Advantages
•Addresses some of the “grey areas” identified
regarding SL
 Places the poor firmly at the centre – makes people visible
 Suggests the importance of clear definition of who is at the
centre of the analysis
 Unpacks the PIP box – more specific regarding key
institutions and processes – and provides a more practical
approach to analysing institutional and policy issues
 Incorporates political dimension more explicitly
 Helps understand entry points – based on opportunities and
aspirations, possible at different levels (identifying them still
depends on good analysis)

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 How does the SL differ from previous approaches?

PRE-SRL SRL
Starting point Resources, needs People
Level of operation Either policy or field level Both policy and
field levels with clear links
between them
Conceptions of Income-based, simple, Multi-dimensional, complex
poverty measurable

Sectoral scope Single sector Multi -sectoral

Indicators Specified at outset People and outcome oriented;
negotiated/ developed over time.
Time frame 3 - 5 years Longer
Project size Medium Start small and
grow
Supporting Production system-based Livelihood
Research strategy-based.
Action research

Skills needed for Technical, policy Managerial, policy, facilitators.

core staff

Source: Carney, 1998

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 A Sustainable Livelihoods Framework

relationships service
controllers
providers
re

ps
la Influences

hi
t io

ns
n

io
sh

t
ip

la
s

re
natural individual

religion

social personal physical

gender history

ability &
ethnicity You disability

class &
age
caste

human information
locality

financial

Hopes Opportunities

CHOICES

ACTIONS
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Livelihood Outcomes