Sustainable livelihood framework

The sustainable livelihoods framework helps to organize the factors that constrain or enhance livelihood opportunities and shows how they relate to one another. A central notion is that different households have different access livelihood assets, which the sustainable livelihood approach aims to expand.

What is sustainable livelihood approach?

It is deemed sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities, assets, and activities both now and in the future, while not undermining the natural resource base. The Sustainable Livelihoods Approach

What is a livelihood framework?

A framework is a ‘particular way of viewing the world’.1 The livelihoods framework is a way of understanding how households derive their livelihoods by drawing on capabilities and assets to develop livelihood strategies composed of a range of activities.

What is livelihood analysis?

DFID has begun to make use of livelihoods approaches in project and program planning and in monitoring and review of existing activities. A first step is to understand the livelihoods of the poor, namely conducting livelihood analysis. The livelihood analysis will be the basis for planning, prioritizing and eventual monitoring.

Are rural livelihood strategies an objective?

Note also that, whilst improved access to livelihood assets and the outcome of greater livelihood security (especially higher incomes, more stable incomes, and reduced risk) are usually important objectives in rural livelihood strategies, environmental sustainability may or may not be an objective.

The livelihoods framework is a tool to improve our understanding of livelihoods, particularly the livelihoods of the poor. It was developed over a period of several months by the Sustainable Rural Livelihoods Advisory Committee, building on earlier work by the Institute of Development Studies (amongst others).

Why a framework?

The sustainable livelihoods framework presents the main factors that affect people’s livelihoods, and typical relationships between these. It can be used in both planning new development activities and assessing the contribution to livelihood sustainability made by existing activities. In particular, the framework:

• provides a checklist of important issues and sketches out the way these link to each other; • draws attention to core influences and processes; and

• emphasizes the multiple interactions between the various factors which affect livelihoods.

The framework is centered on people. It does not work in a linear manner and does not try to present a model of reality. Its aim is to help stakeholders with different perspectives to engage in structured and coherent debate about the many factors that affect livelihoods, their relative importance and the way in which they interact. This, in turn, should help in the identification of appropriate entry points for support of livelihoods.

Understanding the framework

• The form of the framework is not intended to suggest that the starting point for all livelihoods (or livelihood analysis) is the Vulnerability Context which through a series of permutations yields Livelihoods Outcomes. Livelihoods are shaped by a multitude of different forces and factors that are themselves constantly shifting. People-centered analysis is most likely to begin with simultaneous investigation of people’s assets, their objectives (the Livelihood Outcomes which they are seeking) and the Livelihood Strategies which they adopt to achieve these objectives.

• Important feedback is likely between:

(a) Transforming Structures and Process and the Vulnerability Context; and

(b) Livelihood

Outcomes and Livelihood Assets. There are other feedback relationships that affect livelihoods which are not shown. For example, it has been shown that if people feel less vulnerable (Livelihood Outcome) they frequently choose to have fewer children. This has implications for population trends which might be an important part of the Vulnerability Context. Using the framework to help eliminate poverty The framework is intended to be a versatile tool for use in planning and management. It offers a way of thinking about livelihoods that helps order complexity and makes clear the many factors that affect livelihoods. A more important task than perfecting the framework itself is putting the ideas that it represents into practice. If that calls for adaptation of certain boxes or revision of certain definitions to make the framework more useful, all the better; the framework becomes a living tool. Use of the framework is intended to make a distinct contribution to improving DFID’s ability to eliminate poverty. It is not simply a required step in project/program preparation, nor does it provide a magic solution to the problems of poverty elimination.

In order to get the most from the framework:

 • The core ideas that underlie it should not be compromised during the process of adaptation. One of these core ideas is that (most) analysis should be conducted in a participatory manner.

 • Use of the framework should be underpinned by a serious commitment to poverty elimination. This should extend to developing a meaningful dialogue with partners about how to address the underlying political and economic factors that perpetuate poverty.

• Those using the framework must have the ability to recognize deprivation in the field even when elites and others may want to disguise this and skew benefits towards themselves (this will require skill and rigor in social analysis).