All their tomorrows? Steadier livelihoods for Rajasthan's women, men, and children

Rural families in Rajasthan, India, have been adapting their livelihoods for over a generation to help create a buffer against the risk of poverty and hunger that overshadows people living in dryland areas. Who stands to gain the most from this process depends on institutional rules and norms that control peoples' access to capital - social, environmental, human, and economic. Households may gain overall, on a material level, yet women and children can lose out as individuals. What can NGOs, the state, and informal civil society do to prevent the exclusion of certain people from access to capital and hence an improved life? A study by IDS Sussex and IDS-Jaipur suggests they could start by widening access to social capital that help poor families 'get on' rather than just 'get by'.