Whatever happened to Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches - forgotten? discredited? mainstreamed? adapted?

Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches (SLAs) are centred on people and their livelihoods. They prioritise people's assets (tangible and intangible); their ability to withstand shocks and policies and institutions that reflect poor people's priorities, rather than those of the elite. This approach is embedded in the way we work.

We were recently involved in a lively debate that set out to explore what has been learnt from the wide range of experience about the relevance, application and adaptation of the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach to current key development issues. This debate was part of an ESRC-funded Seminar Series on the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach that was held at the IDS Sussex, UK in October 2008

This contribution was based on our involvement with the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach since mid-1998, when we were asked to write a paper on Decentralisation and Sustainable Rural Livelihoods for the first DFID conference on Sustainable Livelihoods in July 1998. This gave rise to research on Institutional Support for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods in Southern Africa which covered Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. A summary of this experience and lessons learnt have been captured in the article ‘Lessons learnt from Khanya-aicdd’s experience of using the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach’

More info on the emerging issues and a summary of the key arguments from the debate is available from the Eldis Community site by clicking here….