The Livelihoods Approach 

Livelihoods Publications

The Livelihoods Approach

The focus of sustainable development has shifted from the ecological perspective to include economic and social sustainability. This has been developed further in the concept of sustainable livelihoods. This approach has been adopted by a number of agencies, NGOs and governments, including UNDP, CARE, OXFAM, and DFID.

The livelihoods approach puts people at the centre of development. This focus on people is equally important at higher levels (when thinking about the achievement of objectives such as poverty reduction, economic reform or sustainable development) as it is at the micro or community level (where in many cases it is already well entrenched).

People – rather than the resources they use or the governments that serve them – are the priority concern. Adhering to this principle may well translate into providing support to resource management or good governance (for example). But it is the underlying motivation of supporting people’s livelihoods that should determine the shape of the support and provide the basis for evaluating its success.

The livelihoods approach attempts to identify the most pressing constraints faced by, and promising opportunities open to, people regardless of where (i.e. in which sector, geographical space or level, from the local through to the international) these occur. It builds upon people’s own definitions of these constraints and opportunities and, where feasible, it then supports people to address/realise them.

The livelihoods framework helps to ‘organise’ the various factors which constrain or provide opportunities and to show how these relate to each other. It is not intended to be an exact model of the way the world is, nor does it mean to suggest that stakeholders themselves necessarily adopt a systemic approach to problem solving. Rather, it aspires to provide a way of thinking about livelihoods that is manageable and that helps improve development effectiveness.

Livelihoods Publications

UNDP have come out very strongly in favour of the Livelihoods approach, and have adopted it as one of their five corporate mandates. UNDP have published a Sustainable Livelihoods Concept Paper, in which they provide brief examples from a number of developing countries.

The British Government have also supported the preparation of a number of key documents on the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach, and have incorporated these concepts in the UK Government White Paper on development and other government policy papers.