Institutional support for sustainable livelihoods in Southern Africa: final report

Chief features of SRL approach:

• It starts with (poor) people as the focus, and so puts clients at the centre
• It recognises the differences within rural communities
• It recognises the holistic nature of people's lives
• It builds on positives
• It emphasises that rural people have strengths and opportunities and not just needs, they are acting to improve their lives
• It links micro with macro approaches.Bottom-up participatory work is needed as well as top-down strategic work
• It recognises the importance of institutional structures and processes
• It involves partnership approaches between state, community and private sector. It is important that Government recognises the diverse roles the state can play: as provider, facilitator, or partner

Emphasises

• Learning to listen
• Rural and urban areas are intimately connected
• Mainstreaming the environment within this holistic approach

Key elements:

• A political vision to overcome rural poverty, expressed in policies on poverty, rural development and economic development
• The policies developed on the basis of micro-level participatory work to understand the realities of rural people's lives
• Commitment to reform of government institutions, and involvement of social partners, so that the best service can be provided to poor people
• Development of an implementation strategy, which should be driven by people dedicated to the task
• Decentralisation of government institutions to take responsibility and authority for operational management close to the people

Requires:

• Political will for change
• Adopting a learning process approach, piloting ideas before freezing them
• A change agent to support the learning process
• An active and dispersed network of local service providers
• District services effective and responsive Meso/provincial level providing support and supervision Centre providing strategy, redistribution and oversight
• Developing concept for services based on analysis of specific client groups, their strengths, needs, priorities

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