• Livelihoods in DFID

Livelihoods in DFID

This paper provides a partial institutional history of sustainable livelihoods approaches (SLA) within the UK Department for International Development (DFID). Focussing on the years 2002-08, the paper aims to provide a critical analysis of what DFID has learnt about SLA and build on lessons learnt to suggest how the approach can help meet current development challenges.

From 1998-2002, DFID placed considerable emphasis on the development and rolling out of SLA but, following restructuring in 2002/3, DFID’s outlook – and the emphasis of international development more widely – changed and SLA fell out of favour. Based on telephone interviews and email discussions with DFID staff and consultants, this paper reviews:

• the reasons for the apparent demise of SLA within DFID policy
• how SLA has, despite these changes, continued to be applied within DFID programmes over the past 6 years
• areas where SLA has been found to be most useful
• possible future directions.

In conclusion, the authors argue that, for progress to be made on SLA within DFID, there is a need to:

• build on concrete achievements and lessons from practice
• develop a simple narrative for livelihoods approaches and link this to other modes of working and DFID corporate objectives
• review how SLA can be adapted to contribute to current development challenges, including the food crisis, fragile states, economic growth and making markets work for the poor
• address perceived weaknesses of SLA, such as limited analysis of policy processes, ecological sustainability, gender and power relations.

• Full text of document
• Publisher details
• Send to a friend