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The sustainable livelihoods framework (SLF) is a diagnostic tool that provides a better understanding of the systems and strategies of livelihoods developed by communities and their interaction with policies and institutions. The analytical framework is applied to a specific context, which evolves over time. The SLF is based on the concepts of poverty and vulnerability, where vulnerability is the susceptibility of people to poverty. It is necessary to understand that these people may not be poor at present but their livelihoods, or the external environment may have features that increase their susceptibility (SFLP, 2005).

The sustainable livelihood framework can be used as an analytical tool to identify and assess internal and external factors to the household that affect its socio-economic survival (see Figure 3.1). It looks into livelihood strategies (i.e. the sum of all different activities that people are doing in the context of their livelihood) in a given vulnerability context (the frame conditions). Vulnerable livelihoods have developed sophisticated (ex-ante) risk-management and (ex-post) risk-coping strategies. They may adopt production plans or employment strategies to reduce their exposure to the risk of adverse income shocks (ex-ante), even if this entails lower average income. In addition to such efforts to smooth income, they may try to smooth consumption (ex-post) by creating buffer stocks,

withdrawing children from school and developing informal insurance and credit arrangements. Formal and semi-formal insurance schemes do not yet contribute to reduce rural income risk and its consequences (Dercon, 2002; Fafchamps, 1999; Kanbur and Squire,2001).

Figure 3.1 Sustainable Livelihood Framework and Vulnerability Context

Vulnerability context Shocks/ Stresses Livelihood capital assets N Assets P S H F Livelihood strategies Outcomes • income • food security • health • education • natural resources • community participation • etc. More secure:

… outcomes influence vulnerability context & livelihood assets … Structures Institutions • Public sector • Private sector • Law • Culture • Markets

… structure & institutions influence context & livelihood assets …

influence & access lead to lead to influences Vulnerability context Shocks/ Stresses Livelihood capital assets N Assets P S H F N N Assets P P S S H H F F Livelihood strategies Outcomes • income • food security • health • education • natural resources • community participation • etc. More secure:

… outcomes influence vulnerability context & livelihood assets … Structures Institutions • Public sector • Private sector • Law • Culture • Markets Structures Institutions • Public sector • Private sector • Law • Culture • Markets

… structure & institutions influence context & livelihood assets …

influence & access influence & access lead to lead to influences influences

Source: adapted from Carney (1998), Drinkwater and Rusinow (1999), Carney et al. (1999), Korf (2002) Notes: 'H' represents human capital, i.e. the skills, knowledge, ability to work and health, important to

pursue different livelihood strategies

'N' represents natural resources, i.e. the natural resource stock from which livelihoods are alimented (e.g. land, forests, water, wildlife, bio-diversity, other environmental resources)

'P' represents physical capital, i.e. the basic infrastructure (e.g. transport, shelter, energy, communications) and the productive assets that enable people to pursue livelihoods

'S' represents social capital, i.e. the social resources (e.g. social networks, membership of groups, relationships of trust, access to wider institutions of society such as political associations) upon which people draw in pursuit of livelihoods

'F' represents financial capital, i.e. the financial resources, which are available to people (e.g. savings for self-insurance, supplies of credit, access to insurance, regular remittances or pensions) and which provide them with different livelihood options

People have access to five forms of capital assets, i.e. natural, physical, human, social, and financial assets.4 The livelihood assets influence and determine access to the socio-economic structure of society at large and their formal and informal institutions. Kanbur and Squire (2001) clearly state that human capital, particularly health and education, are essential building blocks to help the poor increase their income and thus reduce vulnerability (Gumber and Kulkarni, 2000). Building savings is a form of self-insurance that can be relied upon when credit and insurance markets are imperfect and/or non existent (Brown and Nagarajan, 2000; Deaton,1991; Dercon, 2002). The capital assets of the people in combination with the structures and institutions determine the available set of livelihood strategies and achieve certain outcomes (Sanderson, 1999). These outcomes as well as the societal structure and institutions can have positive or negative impacts on the livelihood, thus the feedback loops in Figure 3.1. There are five main parts in the SLF.

First, the vulnerability context is the group of factors operating in the external environment in which people exist which may affect their susceptibility to poverty (source). It comprises trends (i.e. demographic trends; resource trends; trends in governance), shocks (i.e. human, livestock or crop health shocks; natural hazards, like floods or earthquakes; economic shocks; conflicts in form of national or international wars), and seasonality (i.e. seasonality of prices, products or employment opportunities).

Second, the SLA focuses on poor and vulnerable communities and begins by understanding the strengths of the communities and then using these to build up their capacities. SLF sees the community strengths, as “capital assets”. There are five types of livelihood assets– human, natural, physical, social and financial (source):

Human capital (H) represents the skills, knowledge, ability to work and

good health that together enable people to pursue different livelihood strategies and achieve livelihood objectives (DFID, 2000). Without human capital, people are unable to effectively use the other four types of capital.

Natural capital (N) is the term used for the natural resource stocks from

which resource flows and services (such as land, water, forests, air quality, erosion protection, biodiversity degree and rate of change, etc.) useful for livelihoods are derived. Within the framework a particularly close relationship exists between natural capital and the vulnerability context and many of the devastating shocks for the livelihoods are natural processes that destroy natural capital (e.g. fires, floods, earthquakes).

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Clearly, equating 'assets' theoretically with varieties of 'capital' through the 'asset pentagon' in Figure 3.1 distorts the understanding (1) of capital and (2) of poverty. On the first point, capital is properly a social relation between people, not an attribute of rich and poor, respectively. On the second point, attention is displaced from the inequalities of power that must surely be invoked to explain the persistence or the worsening of poverty (Murray, 2001). For a powerful critique of the notion of 'social capital' and 'human capital' see Fine(2001).

Physical capital (P) comprises the basic infrastructure and producer goods

needed to support livelihoods, such as affordable transport, secure shelter and buildings, adequate water supply and sanitation, clean, affordable energy and access to information.

Social capital (S) refers social resources upon which people draw in

seeking for their livelihood outcomes, such as networks and connectedness, that increase people's trust and ability to cooperate or membership in more formalised groups and their systems of rules, norms and sanctions.

Financial capital (F) denotes the financial resources that people use to

achieve their livelihood objectives and comprises the availability of cash or equivalent that enables people to adopt different livelihood strategies. Two main sources of financial capital can be identified: Available stocks comprising cash, bank deposits or liquid assets such as livestock and jewellery, etc. Regular

inflows of money comprising labour income, pensions, or other transfers from

the state, and remittances, which depend on others and need to be reliable.

Among the five assets, financial capital is the most versatile as it can be converted into other types of capital or it can be used for direct achievement of livelihood outcomes (e.g. purchasing of food to reduce food insecurity). However, it tends to be the least available asset for the poor, what makes other capitals important as substitutes.

Third, transforming structures and processes represents the institutions,

organisations, policies and legislation that shape livelihoods. They are of central

importance as they operate at all levels and effectively determine access, terms of exchange between different types of capital, and returns to any given livelihood strategy (Shankland, 2000; Keeley, 2001). Structures can be described as the hardware (private and public organisations) that set and implement policy and legislation, deliver services, purchase, trade and perform all manner of other functions that affect livelihoods (DFID, 2000). Processes constitute the “software” determining the way in which structures and individuals operate and interact. Transforming structures and processes occupy a central position in the framework and directly feedback to the vulnerability context, while influencing and determining ecological or economical trends through political structures, while mitigating or enforcing effects of shocks or keeping seasonality under control through working market structures; or they can restrict people's choice of livelihood strategies (e.g. caste system) and may thus be a direct impact on livelihood outcomes.

Fourth, livelihood strategies comprise the range and combination of activities and choices that people undertake in order to achieve their livelihood goals. When considering livelihood strategies to the SLF, it is important to recognise that people compete (for jobs, markets, natural resources, etc.), which makes it difficult for everyone to achieve simultaneous improvements in their livelihoods. The poor are themselves a very heterogeneous group, placing different priorities in a finite and therefore disputed environment. An application

of the SLF offers the advantage to be sensitive for such issues in a differentiated manner.

Fifth, livelihood outcomes are the achievements of livelihood strategies, such as more income (e.g. cash), increased well-being (e.g. non material goods, health status, access to services), reduced vulnerability (e.g. better resilience through increase in asset status), improved food security (e.g. increase in financial capital in order to buy food) and a more sustainable use of natural

resources (e.g. appropriate property rights). Outcomes help us to understand the

'output' of the current configuration of factors within the livelihood framework and demonstrate what motivates stakeholders to act as they do and what their priorities are and give an idea of how people are likely to respond to new opportunities and which performance indicators should be used to assess support activity. Livelihood Outcomes directly influence the assets and change dynamically their level.

The potential for applications of the SLF is manifold and not restricted to livelihood thinking only, as the approach includes ideas of other recent theoretical approaches. Its flexible design and openness to changes makes it adaptable to diverse local settings, where it can be applied to different extents associated to the development research or project objectives. Prior to any development activity the SLF might serve as an analytical tool for the identification of development priorities and new activities in order to understand the way a socially constructed environment works and to find potential beneficiaries or partners in practice. The uses of the SLF are diverse and flexibly adaptable to many settings, but it does not represent a magic tool being able to eliminate problems of poverty with a single sign, nor is it a complete new idea that will be revolutionary for development research and cooperation. Still, the SLF delivers a good tool to structure development research and increase efficiency of development projects. Rooted within the strengths of the approach quite often its weaknesses can be found too: On the one hand a differentiated livelihood analysis requires enormous financial, time and personal resources often lacking in practical projects. Moreover, the claim to be holistic leads to a consideration of very many aspects, what inevitably delivers a flood of information hardly possible to cope with. The decision about what to consider with priority leads us to a normative dilemma. Further problems may arise with the analysis of the livelihood assets, as for example the difficulties to measure and to compare social capital. Additionally, the asset status of a person is highly associated with the amount of dependence from a certain resource, varying according to the local context, as for instance some actors might be able to satisfy their needs with a low level of financial capital, whereas others with more financial capital show by far less ability to do so (NCCR, 2002).