Sustainable Livelihoods Approach
The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework
The DFID Sustainable Livelihoods Framework was the first and is still the most widely recognised and used SL framework. Other development agencies have produced variations with differing degrees of emphasis on different components, but all the models essentially share the same principles, components and interrelationships between the components.
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The arrows within the framework are used as shorthand to denote a variety of different types of relationships, all of which are highly dynamic. None of the arrows imply direct causality, though all imply a certain level of influence.
The different components of the framework are defined and explained in Annex 1: Components of the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework. All of the components, from livelihood assets to vulnerability, are influenced in a systemic way by social difference, including sex, age, ethnicity and other factors. For example, women and men may have differential access to natural capital (say land), and differential influence over policies and institutions and may be differentially impacted upon by the same. Such social difference needs to be taken into account in livelihood analysis at both the inter-household and intra-household levels.
Power dynamics also influence, in a systemic way, livelihood assets, structures and processes, strategies, outcomes and vulnerabilities. There are different interests, conflicts and tensions within and between communities. Poor communities, and the poor within communities, can have least access to assets, scant influence over structures and processes that govern their lives, and the greatest vulnerability to shocks of all kinds. Thus an understanding of political processes and power dynamics can be central to an understanding of poor people’s livelihoods and pathways to improvement.