Comparación de resultados y discusiones

In this section, the focus is upon poverty and its evolution. Since poverty has been conceptualised in various ways and from different perspectives, a clear understanding is crucial to the shaping of this study, especially the links between rural poverty and rural livelihoods. This section starts with a review of the evolution of poverty thinking–related concepts, and of the ways to employ these concepts in the generalising sustainable livelihood approach adopted by rural poverty and livelihood practitioners and many development studies.

2.2.1 Evolution of the poverty concept

Poverty is not a new issue in development concerns. There is evidence of studies dating back well over a hundred years. Kakwani and Silber (2008, p. xiv), citing Charles Booth’s “Life and Labour of the People in London”, state that several surveys of working class life between 1886 and 1903 were undertaken in the 19th century. Seebohm Rowntree’s 1901 work titled “Poverty, A Study of Town Life” provided a systematic analysis and measurement of poverty. Thus, given the attention it has been afforded over the past three decades (Chowdhury & Ahmed, 2008; Kakwani & Silber, 2008), the concept of poverty has significantly evolved with time (Reed, 2002). I will now briefly present details of the major evolution of the poverty concept in chronological order.

Poverty has been widely defined and refined from various perspectives. Descriptions have ranged from simple descriptions to more complex, multiple dimension perceptions. During the 1960s, poverty was defined in terms of income and/or expenditure, becoming known as income poverty. This simple definition referred to the minimum amount of money required to buy basic needs such as food, clothing and housing (Hagenaars & De Vos, 1988). Poverty was conceptualised in this way because development during the 1960s was understood in terms of economic growth: poverty meant lack of monetary resources (Grima, Horton & Kant, 2003). Another reason is that the consumption of goods and services had gained more favour as a superior poverty indicator (Nunan et al., 2002). During the 1970s, social well-being indicators, including health services, nutrition and shelter, were recognised as crucial for households. During this period, social or so called non-income indicators were incorporated into the concept of poverty. Poverty came to be measured not only in simple dollar terms, but also in terms of the ability of individuals to purchase a basket of goods and services providing required foods and non-food items (Opschoor, 2007; Ravallion, 1996).

Since the early 1980s, Amartya Sen’s work has influenced the concept of poverty. Sen (1981) introduced the entitlement concept with its focus on ownership and exchange as a means of ensuring food supplies and other basic needs. Along with other social development scholars, Sen influenced the Human Development Index (HDI)11

Sen, 1999

of the UNDP. In addition, Sen suggested two further approaches: capability, i.e., what people can or cannot do; and, functioning, which referred to what they are or are not doing ( ). Sen’s work on material well-being, the entitlement approach, and the opportunities implicit in the capability

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and functioning approaches culminated in significant modification of the poverty concept (Chowdhury & Ahmed, 2008; Fisher & Hirsch, 2008; Vizard, 2006; Vizard, Fukuda‐Parr & Elson, 2011).

In the early 1990s, the concept of poverty became even more comprehensive when many scholars recognised the environmental and political impacts of poverty. Bhatta (2006, p. 73), for example, describes poverty as a lack of access to human, financial and economic, political, physical, natural capitals and security. Similarly, from a human development perspective, Grima et al., (2003) saw poverty as a denial; that is, of present and future generations’ lack of opportunity to make social, economic, environmental, cultural and/or political choices. During this time, environmental and political impacts, now recognised as crucial factors influencing sustainable development, were included in the concept of poverty. Mabogunje (2002) claims that globalization, political instability, and regional conflict have been major factors in the deepening of poverty in many developing countries.

Since the 1990s, some studies have conceptualised poverty beyond the environment and politics, adding various factors to the poverty debate. Bhatta (2006), mentioned above,

describes poverty in a wide range of circumstances, and associates it with need, hardship, lack of resources to sustain livelihoods, and vulnerability to environmental degradation. Opschoor (2007, p. 6) defines poverty as “a social condition of chronic insecurity resulting from a malfunctioning of economic, ecological, and social systems, and causing groups of people to lose the capacity to adapt and survive and to live beyond minimal levels of their needs and aspiration”. The above quotes suggest that poverty has been defined in a wide range of circumstances associated with need, hardship, resource limitation and vulnerability as well as environmental degradation.

Evolving knowledge of the concept of poverty has allowed many development agencies to generalise their own poverty definitions in their development agendas. For example, in its World Development Report on Attacking Poverty 2001, the World Bank delineates poverty not simply as material deprivation, but also relates it to the broader notions of risk,

vulnerability, social inclusion and opportunities (World Bank, 2006b, p. 22). In the joint development report produced by the DFID12, EC, UNDP and the World Bank (2002, p. 9), poverty is defined as “encompassing both income and non-income dimensions of deprivation- including lack of income and other material means; lack of access to basic social services

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such as education, health, and safe water; lack of personal security; and lack of empowerment to participate in the political process and in decisions that influence someone's life.”

In 2000, the UNDP (2000) conceptualised the basic concepts of poverty into two categories, namely income poverty and human poverty (see Figure 2.1). These two definitions, which are distinguished by their means of measurement, have been widely used by many poverty reduction and rural development projects. More recently, many factors considered to be related to the globalisation phenomenon, such as income and social problems, political instability, environmental issues, vulnerability, insecurity and conflict, have been viewed as crucial to the concept of poverty. A combination of these factors has seen poverty as a problem with multiple dimensions or a multifaceted phenomenon (Kakwani & Silber, 2008; Mabogunje, 2002; Opschoor, 2007; Rahman, 2004; Reed, 2002).

Figure 2. 1: UNDP Basic Poverty Definitions Source: Extracted from UNDP (2000, p. 20), Box 1.1.

Since the 1960s, the concept of poverty has evolved to a degree that has attracted wide- ranging attention to development, poverty reduction and sustainable development issues. But due to its complex definitions, applying the concept of poverty in reality can prove

complicated and challenging, not only for development practitioners, but also for policy decision-makers as well, particularly in their attempt to understand poverty in particular contexts.

In practice, it may be impossible to include all of the abovementioned factors in the complex definitions of poverty given that one can neither observe nor collect all of the data pertaining to poverty indicators, especially in poor, developing countries. Thus, it would be reasonable to select a few or some key poverty indicators only when undertaking working analyses, studies or assessments of rural development projects. In fact, the simple dollar definition of income poverty related to purchasing power can be applied to reveal pictures of poverty in many studies: income poverty has been applied in many poverty debates and practices in developing countries. For example, the World Bank (2008) used a poverty criterion of $1.25

a day in terms of 2005 purchasing power parity (PPP) to evaluate poverty status in Laos. More importantly, it is useful to listen to the poor because they are the real group

experiencing poverty (see Narayan, Patel, Schafft, Rademacher & Koch-Schulte, 2000)13 2001

. Killeen and Khan ( ) suggest that the poor should play a central role in defining their own poverty models as well as in the planning and implementing of them, a perception closely related to the concept of the sustainable livelihood approach which I explain in the following section.

2.2.2 Sustainable livelihoods approach and rural poverty

The accumulating knowledge of poverty lists many factors that contribute to poverty, factors that can be grouped in terms of lacking various assets, such as financial, human, physical, natural, social and/or political capital. One finds these forms of capital employed as main components of the sustainable livelihood (SL) approach (SLA) in many rural poverty and sustainable livelihood studies. SLA, which is claimed to derive from the modification and evolution of poverty concepts, has been improved upon and practised in various poverty eradication tasks by many development organisations, such as bilateral and multilateral donors, NGOs and research institutions (Brocklesby & Fisher, 2003). This sub-section aims to explain the concept of the SLA, its links to poverty issues and its utilisation as a tool for eradicating poverty.

Many studies regard Chambers and Conway’s (1992) concept paper on sustainable rural livelihoods produced for the Institution of Development Studies (IDS) in 1991 as the original concept of SL (see Carney, 1998; Chambers & Conway, 1992; Scoones, 1998). But, some livelihood studies may have been available before that date. Scoones (2009, p. 3) claims that livelihood thought existed more than a half of century ago in a cross-disciplinary form of rural development thinking and practice. In addition, it is argued that notions of SL were discussed in the World Commission on Environment and Development 1987 report on the issues of resource ownership, basic needs and rural livelihood security; but, these studies have proven less popular than those alluded to in the above studies (Brocklesby & Fisher, 2003; Scoones, 1998).

The concept of SL based on Chambers and Conway’s (1992) work has been widely accepted and viewed as linked with Sen’s concepts of capability, equity and sustainability (Solesbury, 2003). Chambers and Conway define their SL notions as follows:

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A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (stores, resources, claims and access) and activities required for a means of living; a livelihood is sustainable which can cope with and recover from stress and shocks, maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, and provide sustainable livelihood opportunities for the next generation; and which contributes net benefits to other livelihoods at the local and global levels and in the short and long-term (Chambers & Conway, 1992, p. 6).

Since the early 1990s, this SL definition has been adapted in many research and development practice. Solesbury (2003) observes that many development agencies, such as Oxfam, CARE International and UNDP, immediately adopted this concept and applied it to their

development agendas due to the fact that it was in line with their long-standing commitment to participatory approaches to development, their existing values and beliefs, and their supporting powers in problematic analysis and arguments. In addition, the SL concept presented as a new and rich research issue that attracted international attention to both empirical and theoretical studies (Solesbury, 2003). Building upon discussions conducted in 1997 and modifying the work of Chambers and Conway, in early 1998, the IDS team redefined their SLA as follows:

A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks, maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, while not undermining the natural resource base (Scoones, 1998, p. 5).

Figure 2. 2: IDS’s Sustainable Rural Livelihood Framework Source: Adapted from Scoones (1998, p. 4), Figure 1.

The IDS’s SL definition differed slightly from the last part of Chambers and Conway’s requirement to contribute net benefits to other livelihoods at the local and global levels and in the short and long-term so that livelihoods could be considered sustainable. This requirement has been excluded from the IDS’s definition (Krantz, 2001). In addition, the IDS created an analytical framework to investigate sustainable rural livelihoods (see Figure 2.2).

According to the IDS’s analytical framework of sustainable livelihood, the way to analyse livelihoods is to set key questions in relation to five interacting elements: livelihood contexts; livelihood resources; institutions; livelihood strategies and outcomes. The original key

question set by the IDS appears below:

Given a particular context (of policy setting, politics, history, agroecology and socio- economic conditions), what combination of livelihood resources (different kinds of capital) result in the ability to follow what combination of livelihood strategies (agricultural intensification/intensification, livelihood diversification and migration) with what outcomes? Of particular interest in this framework are the institutional

processes (embedded in a matrix of formal and informal institutions and organisations)

which mediate the ability to carry out such strategies and achieve (or not) such outcomes. (Scoones, 1998, pp. 3, original emphasis)

In the IDS’s SL framework, Scoones defines livelihood resources as “basic materials and social, tangible and intangible assets that people have in their possession, and can be defined as [a] ‘capital’ base from which different productive streams are derived [and] from which livelihoods are constructed” (1998, p. 7). More importantly, he also offers definitions of four types of livelihood capital with the integration with physical capital, which later was

separated out by DFID (see Chapter 4)

• Natural capital – the natural resource stocks (soil, water, air, genetic resources etc.) and environmental services (hydrological cycle, pollution sinks etc) from which resource flows and services useful for livelihoods are derived.

• Economic or financial capital – the capital base (cash, credit/debt, savings, and other economic assets, including basic infrastructure and production equipment and technologies) which are essential for the pursuit of any livelihood strategy.

• Human capital – the skills, knowledge, ability to labour and good health and physical capability important for the successful pursuit of different livelihood strategies.

• Social capital – the social resources (networks, social claims, social relations, affiliations, associations) upon which people draw when pursuing different livelihood strategies requiring coordinated actions (Scoones, 1998, pp. 7-8).

Based on the work of Chambers and Conway (1992) and on the IDS’s SL framework (Scoones, 1998), the DFID put considerable effort into refining the latter’s framework in order to accommodate its particular concerns and practical objectives for livelihood analysis (Carney, 1998). In mid 1998, a new modified SL of DFID’s analytical framework for rural

development was released, which, while sharing some similar features with the IDS

framework, was in effect a different version (see Figure 2.3) (Carney, 1998; Solesbury, 2003). The DFID’s SLA has been viewed as more closely directed towards the rural poor. Ashley and Carney describe it as ‘a way of thinking about the objectives, scope and priorities for development, in order to enhance progress in poverty elimination; [it] also aims to help poor people achieve lasting improvements against the indicators of poverty that they define’ (1999, p. 6). Poverty-focused development activities in the core concepts of the DFID’s SLA are designed to emphasise people-centred, respective and participatory, multi-level, conducted in partnership, sustainable, and dynamic (Ashley & Carney, 1999; DFID, 1999a).

Figure 2. 3: DFID’s Sustainable Rural Livelihood Framework Source: Adapted from Sustainable Livelihood Guidance Sheets (DFID, 1999a).

Regarding the above framework, it is important to understand the five livelihood components (DFID, 1999b). First, Vulnerability Content suggests that people’s livelihoods can be

externally affected by shocks, trends, seasonality and other risks. Second, Livelihood Assets are capital needs required to strengthen people’s livelihoods. They are presented in a pentagon and consist of human, social, physical, financial and natural capital. This concept of pentagon will be employed as one of the research methods to assess the local impacts of private

investment in Chapter 7 of this thesis. Third, Livelihood Transforming Structures and Processes refer to the institutions, organisations, policies and legislation that can shape livelihoods, and underpin their vulnerability context. Fourth, Livelihood Strategies are the choices, opportunities and diversities with which people are confronted when achieving their livelihood goals. Finally, Livelihood Outcomes are the achievements or outputs of livelihood strategies closely linked to the availability of livelihood assets. The DFID’s (1999b) SLA

framework has been viewed as a tool to facilitate an understanding of the rural poor by analysing the main factors affecting their livelihoods and relationships among said factors. Since the late 1990s, many disseminating techniques have been used to promote the implications of the SLA for the DFID in poverty eradication programs. For example, its guidance sheets, training and learning materials are available, have been translated into different languages, and appear in both manuals and on line websites14

DFID, 1999a

. Many regional workshops and conferences have been organised in many places, and distance learning has been set up (see , 1999b; Solesbury, 2003). As a result, the DFID’s SLA has been adapted to several poverty reduction programs in many developing and poor countries by donor development agencies as well as by research institutions such as NGOs, UNDP, FAO, IFAD, Care International, DFID, SIDA, SDC, Oxfam, the International Institution for sustainable development (IISD), and the Society for International Development (SID) (see Brocklesby & Fisher, 2003; Krantz, 2001; Scoones, 2009; Solesbury, 2003). This current study will also apply this SLA to examine changes in rural livelihoods in Laos related to issues in investment sites. More details will be provided in Chapter 8.