Points of View
Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches
Packaging or product?
The new-ish buzzwords on the development block are "Sustainable Livelihoods". The protagonists say that this concept embraces a more people-centred, holistic and flexible approach to development planning which should deliver more effective poverty reduction. The sceptics argue that this is no more than new packaging for what has long been good development practice. And what is meant by a sustainable livelihoods approach?
Sustainable livelihood approaches are being used as an 'optic' through
which poverty can be better understood and development options prioritised.
ODI Natural Resource Perspectives No. 49, March 2000
"Increasingly the term 'livelihood' better captures the complex
and diverse reality of poor people's economic activities. Discovering
ways of making livelihoods sustainable and more likely to deliver an acceptable
standard of living is an urgent priority for governments and organizations
committed to poverty eradication. Much of Oxfam's work - for example offering
farmers in the Sahel advice and equipment so they can irrigate their crops
rather than depend on unpredictable rainfall; giving a fair and predictable
price to coffee co-operatives in Central America . . . is about making
livelihoods more secure. . . .
Social Investment and Economic Growth, by Patrick Watt, published by Oxfam
In my office, I meet a lot of people who want to come and talk about
Sustainable Livelihoods and many say, 'Is this just another fad?' I don't
believe it is another fad. I really strongly believe that it is an evolution
in development thinking, which probably started twenty years ago and maybe
even before. And with each new idea, we get better and more focused in
being able to deliver. So I believe SL is a point on the path of the evolution
of delivering better development.
Jane Clark, Rural Livelihoods Department, DFID
UHAI in Kiswahili means 'livelihood'. It is the name given to a 'model'
designed to empower people to manage their natural resources sustainably
and to enhance their livelihood through dynamic people's forums. Sustainable
livelihood, in the UHAI approach, is seen as having its roots in the unique
culture of the people. It focuses on the past, present and the future
of life and it draws its strength from internal justice, morality, and
collective community spirit and responsibility.
From an article by CDK Muhia in ILEIA Newsletter, March 2000
A lot of policy-makers are still very focused on jobs and they don't
seem to have learned the lesson of what their people are doing. And people
are not doing just one job. They are doing very many things. There are
multiple-activities through which people make their living and yet we
continue to hold on to that concept of a job as a commodity that follows
the laws of demand and supply. We apply standard labour market economic
laws and it continues to fail to answer the questions because you have
economic growth in many countries but not job generation. So you have
this phenomenon called 'jobless growth' and a whole range of other contradictions.
And the issue at hand there is one of livelihoods rather than jobs and
that is why the definition of livelihoods, that UNDP uses - of activities,
assets and entitlements - much better describes today's reality.
Naresh Singh, UNDP
FAO has drawn up a strategic framework for the period 2000 to 2015 that
was adopted by the FAO conference last November. And the first goal actually
cites Sustainable Livelihoods as one of the goals of the strategic framework.
So it's actually part of our mandate now to work on this topic. FAO is
a large and complicated organization so it's not that there will be one
single strategy for change. So yes, at one level we will be concerned
with the policy implications but we also give a lot of concern to the
field level and particularly to assisting countries in developing projects
and programmes at a country level. So we are concerned here how we can
try and incorporate the Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches and principles
into the field programme.
Jenny Dey Abbass, Rural Development Division, FAO
I think there is a problem of blowing it up. This framework of understanding
the context is indispensible. If you apply that framework you design a
better project, that's fine. What bothers me is when we talk of operationalizing
livelihoods approaches. I do not understand this. So you are speaking
of a flexible project, with a good monitoring system, and obviously participatory.
This is the objective of 95% of the projects which are designed without
any SLA! It is a tool of reflection. I cannot see what it is more. Frankly
I don't see what it is more.
Alberta Mascaretti, FAO
For the first time in my experience of development, we have a set of
principles whereby you build on the strength and opportunity of the poor
people. Poor people are active participants. They are not passive recipients
with needs but they are actively involved; they have strength and opportunities.
And this is building on these strengths and opportunities which I think
is a unique selling point of the livelihoods approach. I worked for ten
years as a veterinarian overseas, working particularly on trypanosomiasis
and tick borne diseases. I can see where, by adopting a technological
approach to my work, I missed out on really addressing the key livelihood
priorities of poor people. I would have done things differently, as a
vet, if I was using a livelihoods framework to the way I did them 15-20
years ago.
Michael Scott, Rural Livelihoods Department, DFID.
As we all know, people's livelihoods are not single sectoral issues,
they are multi-sectoral issues and people are dealing with a great complexity
and we need to be able to reflect that. I think we've got a long way to
go in breaking down those sectoral walls but I do think that SL is beginning
to help us move in that direction.
Jane Clark, Rural Livelihoods Department, DFID
The SL approaches themselves are a simple and blunt statement of common
sense in many ways, and the danger with all simple statements of blunt
common sense is that people assume that it therefore makes very little
difference to how they actually go about their everyday lives because
everything they do is based on common sense. That belies some fundamental
changes which people are going to have to make in the way that their own
organizations operate in order to make the SL approaches work smoothly
in the field, and those are the issues which are the most difficult issues
to address.
Dil Peeling, Livestock in Development
I think people at field level want simple answers to maybe complex questions.
And I see this as a very complex answer to a complex question. To explain
what the sustainable livelihoods approach might look like to a farmer
in the fields of Zambia, I said it might appear like a five-headed shovel
in which he has to dig a single hole in the ground! It maybe very suitable
for dealing with complex issues but to solve his problem right there .
. . totally useless.
John Rouse, FAO
One question that pops up all the time is, 'Does this livelihoods approach
mean a normal sectoral project or can we still do a sectoral project with
a livelihood approach?' I think there is a big potential to keep doing
sectoral projects dealing with one issue but consider that there is a
whole bunch of organizations that can deal with the other issues which
the project cannot deal with directly.
Ricardo Roc'a, Rural Development Consultant, Bolivia
Well I guess my feeling is that there's nothing magical about livelihood
approaches. They're just good, common sense and some of your best development
practitioners have implicitly already incorporated these development principles
in the way that they approach development. What we are doing is just trying
to make that more explicit to people that maybe have not come to that
point in their development careers. I think one of the fears is to create
a whole industry of livelihoods specialists and I think to make this really
effective and to institutionalize it we need to have each of the sectors
adopting a livelihoods perspective in the way that they approach their
work. So it's not so much specialists that are livelihood security specialists
its more each of the sector specialists appreciating this perspective
and looking at their own work from that perspective.
Tim Frankenberger, CARE
The feedback that I'm getting in my office that people are finding it
a very useful tool for establishing dialogues with people that they wouldn't
normally talk to and it's a framework for encouraging communication and
for sharing ideas. And that can only help to deliver better products.
Jane Clark, Rural Livelihoods Department, DFID
The cost of not changing the way in which we do things is greater than
the cost of changing. We have to do things better. Conceptually and intellectually
we have confidence that this approach is the right move. We can't afford
not to change.
Sarah Holden Livestock in Development
The added value of the SL concept and methodology as developed by UNDP
is that it approaches poverty reduction in a sustainable manner. First,
it attempts to bridge the gap between macro policies and micro realities
(and vice versa); an effort that neither poverty reduction programmes
nor participatory development initiatives have been able to accomplish
successfully. UNDP website. The SL approach, by using both participatory
and policy (cross-sectoral) tools, highlights the inter-linkages between
livelihood systems at the micro level and the macro policies which affect
these livelihoods . . . Second, such an approach integrates environmental,
social and economic issues into a holistic framework for analysis and
programming . . . Third, programme development begins not with community
needs assessment but with community strengths and assets assessment.
UNDP website
Developing sustainable livelihoods is viable even in poor countries where
growth is slow or negative. Although rapid economic growth is important
to employment creation, strategies that promote sustainable livelihoods
are possible in low-growth and no-growth environments and in the short
to medium term are imperative in those countries where rapid economic
growth remains elusive.
Social Investment and Economic Growth, by Patrick Watt, published by
Oxfam
There cannot be equality of opportunity unless opportunities are there
to be grasped. In short, equitable growth depends on the right to a viable
livelihood being realized. Unemployment and underemployment are expensive
in social and economic terms, as well as being a waste of human potential.
Governments therefore have an interest, as well as an obligation, to promote
full employment through policies which favour labour-intensive growth
and equip workers with the skills necessary to meet changing demands in
the labour market. The success of many East Asian countries in creating
labour-intensive growth enabled unprecedented numbers of people to escape
from poverty in the space of a few decades. This is one regional experience
that other developing countries should emulate.
Social Investment and Economic Growth, by Patrick Watt, published by
Oxfam
If poverty eradication is to be taken seriously, it is not business-as-usual
either in southern Africa or in donor countries and multilateral institutions.
Current policy recipes may address growth but are not satisfactory in
addressing overty. What is needed are joint learning programmes to explore
new answers to this challenge, and a willingness to sacrifice redundant
policies and structures on both sides so that real impacts can be made.
ODI Natural Resource Perspective No. 50, March 2000
