Khanya-aicdd's approach to development is based on making interventions at three levels:

Empowering communities - micro (community) level

• To help people to be active and involved in managing their own development by claiming their rights and exercising their responsibilities, with the specific involvement of the poor;
• To create an active, responsive, dispersed and accountable network of local service providers (public and private);

Strengthened local governments and meso level services

• At local government level services are effective, coordinated, responsive and held accountable (whether public or private);
• the level above (eg province) is providing support, supervision, as well as strategic planning;

Realigned centre

• national/provincial government is providing strategic direction, redistribution, coordination and oversight;
• International level supporting capacity of nations and regions to address poverty.

Khanya-aicdd sees the sustainable livelihoods approach (SLA) as a useful framework in addressing poverty. This recognises the different assets of individuals/households/ communities (natural, social, physical, financial and human assets, the critical importance of understanding vulnerabilities, the institutional environment, and people's choices in terms of preferred outcomes and the livelihood strategies they choose to employ (see Khanya-aicdd documents on sustainable livelihoods approach). Khanya-aicdd's approach is to work with communities and groups in communities to build on their existing assets/strengths to facilitate the development and strengthening of coping and survival strategies and improving livelihoods.

The common denominator in individual, household and community livelihoods is the judicious management of resources. Management principles will pervade all levels when they are constantly informed and empowered by Khanya-aicdd's unique approach of inclusive community-based planning (CBP), facilitated using community-based services in order to achieve all-inclusive community-based management (CBM). The integration that takes place in these practices and processes vertically and laterally aligns the vulnerabilities of all classes of society in an entire paradigm that requires a holistic approach. Koos Neefjes (2000) contends that what is required first and foremost is a change in the mindset of relief agencies and a better understanding of local people's survival strategies.

A number of links between the food security framework and the SLA are apparent. In both frameworks, consideration of vulnerability to shocks and stresses is a key feature of analysis on which future planning is based.

If we consider the five assets categories that form SLA's core - human, financial, social, natural and physical - it is apparent that food security interventions may be allied closely to each of these. Strengthening access to natural assets such as land, water and genetic resources are a fundamental part of supporting food production.

There is a strong link between the entitlements approach and social and political assets that further relates to informal and formal systems of governance. An important part of food security relates to control over food, or the power to take decisions about food. An analysis of power is central to this. Entitlements are defined as 'the set of alternative commodity bundles that a person can command in a society using the totality of rights and opportunities that he or she faces'. (Sen 1984, 497). In some senses entitlements can be seen as the practical mobilisation of the full array of assets to realise a commodity bundle that includes food. Not everyone can mobilise commodity bundles that meet their needs, including for sufficient food. Entitlement relations in a market economy (an economy based on private ownership) include trade, production, labour and inheritance and transfer entitlements (Sen 1981, 2). Entitlement is not related to a normative right as such, but rather on the actual ability of an individual or household to mobilise the various assets at their command, including the power vested in them by the society they live in, whether formal or informal. There is a strong gender component to this because women often have weaker effective command over resources or assets than men.

Food security interventions are designed explicitly to strengthen individual and household assets. However they may not always be the best long-term interventions especially when they are not filtered through an analytical process that considers the structure of assets, vulnerabilities and opportunities holistically and contextualised in a policy and institutional framework. A unique and valuable aspect of Khanya-aicdd's approach is to highlight the importance of building on existing strengths and basing interventions on participatory holistic analytical processes.