Sustainable livelihoods guidance sheets: sections 4.8 to 4.13

This is the fourth of a seven part series of guidance sheets on sustainable livelihoods (SL). This fourth section, for manageability purposes, is broken down in two: sections 4.1 - 4. 7 and sections 4.8 - 4. 13; this is the latter. This part focuses on particular components of the SL framework and the methods best suited to exploring these. It starts off with the vulnerability context. The vulnerability context, which refers to seasonality, trends and shocks that affect livelihoods, is not always susceptible to control by local people themselves. Therefore, section 4.8 looks at the ways in which the negative effects of the Vulnerability Context can be minimised – including by building greater resilience and improving overall livelihood security. This is of particular importance for the poor, since a common response to adverse seasonality and shocks is to dispose of assets. Yet the poor often have no saleable assets. Their lack of assets also means that they are often less able than their richer counterparts to respond to positive trends.

Section 4.9 and 4.10 are concerned with the asset status of different groups of people and their communities. The SL approach endeavours to build on these assets (strengths) instead of emphasising weakness and need. In order to do that, it is important to understand:

• levels of assets and their distribution among individuals, households, groups, neighbourhoods
  and communities (gender and age disaggregation is essential throughout the investigation)
• changes in asset status over time (cycles within a year as well as longer-term changes)
• the roles assets play in livelihoods (some assets – e.g. livestock – fulfill multiple functions)
• asset interactions.

Many of the answers to questions about assets will be found not through investigation of the assets
themselves, but through investigation into the relationships between assets and other components of
the SL framework. This underlines the importance of retaining a holistic view during investigation. The paper concludes with a look at policy, institutions and processes; livelihoods strategies; and outcomes (from sections 4.11 - 4.13).