Livelihoods Connect guide to sustainable livelihoods organisations and events

Livelihood Protection and Promotion

These papers explore policies and their capacity to protect or promote poor peoples livelihoods, linking the macro to the micro. Some of the papers group livelihood protection and promotion together but it is useful to distinguish between the two :

Livelihood protection addresses vulnerability and seeks to ensure that vulnerable groups or populations have the means to avoid falling into severe food crisis or destitution. Some protection strategies try to help people to build more secure livelihoods from a highly vulnerable starting point.

Livelihood promotion goes much wider than this - it is about creating enabling environments and services that will generally widen options for people. It aims to equip people with assets and opportunities so that their resilience to cope is enhanced and they can meet their basic needs on a sustainable basis.

The following papers describe and reflect upon different policies which protect or promote poor people's livelihoods. They provide a rich, diverse insight into the complex reality of achieving policy goals in practice.

				Livelihood Protection
				The Livelihood Options project explored the difficulties in targeting of policies/programmes to the most vulnerable
				Post Offices, Pensions, and Computers: New Opportunities for Combining Growth and Social Protection in Weakly Integrated Rural Areas? (John Farrington / N.C. Saxena /Tamsyn Barton / Radhika Nayak/ ODI/ 2003) (PDF) This paper reviews the complexities of policy targeting and delivery in India. It questions why there is an apparently unstoppable (or another simpler word) trend towards an increasing number of ever more complex government schemes for transferring resources to the poor.
				Out of Reach: Local Politics and the Distribution of Development Funds in Madhya Pradesh (Vikas Singh / Bhupendra Gehlot / Daniel Start / Craig Johnson / Working Paper No.200 / ODI / 2003) (PDF) This paper looks at development fund schemes in Madhya Pradesh, India. It investigates to what degree the intended recipients have been able to access the development funds compared to the political and economic elites. It unravels the allocation and use of funds, the inclusion and exclusion of actors and the role of the bureaucracy from whom power over these funds has recently been transferred.
				The SCL project explores livelihood protection in the coastal areas of Bengal
				Post Disaster Rehabilitation and the Coastal Poor Policy briefing paper (PDF) Working paper (PDF) The poor in coastal areas of the western Bay of Bengal are particularly vulnerable to a wide array of disasters. These may be the result of political, social, economic or natural forces and the impacts may be acute or chronic, large-scale or small-scale. This paper focuses on large-scale natural disasters and their interaction with the poor over the short to medium term - how they affect the poor, what is being done to address this issue, and what can be done specifically to help to rehabilitate the coastal poor after a disaster.
				Livelihoods Promotion
				The LADDER project explores different ways of measuring the cost of illness and its impact on livelihoods. It also considers how to support the promotion of livelihoods in the context of poverty reduction policies in a number of different sub-Saharan African countries
				Rural Livelihoods and Illness: Case-studies in Tanzania and Malawi (Sylvie Koestle / LADDER Working Paper No.19/ March 2002) (PDF) This paper illustrates how the cost of illness is not just a factor of output or income foregone due to the inability to continue working, it is also linked to the decline in household assets resulting from the need to meet the costs of treatment and medicines.
				Rural Livelihoods and Poverty Reduction Strategies in Four African Countries (Frank Ellis/ H. Ade Freeman/ LADDER/ 2002) (PDF) This paper compares rural livelihoods in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi, with a view to informing Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). Lessons for PRSPs centre on the creation of a facilitating public sector environment for non-farm enterprises; seeking creative ways to spread technical advice to farmers; and examining the implications of tax revenue collection by district councils on rural incomes and enterprise.
				Livelihoods and Rural Poverty Reduction in Uganda (Frank Ellis / Godfrey Bahiigwa/ LADDER Working Paper No.5 / 2001) (PDF) This paper uses research on rural livelihoods in three districts in Uganda to draw policy lessons relevant to Uganda's Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP). Research shows that rural poverty is strongly associated with lack of land and livestock, as well as inability to secure non-farm alternatives to diminishing farm opportunities.
				Livelihoods and Rural Poverty Reduction in Tanzania (Frank Ellis / Ntengua Mdoe / LADDER Working Paper No.11 / 2002) (PDF) This paper draws on research in rural livelihoods in ten sub-villages in the Tanzania's Morogoro region. It draws conclusions about the capacity of the PRSP to deliver its promises for poverty reduction in rural areas.
				Livelihoods and Rural Poverty Reduction in Malawi (Frank Ellis / Milton Kutengule / Alfred Nyasulu/ LADDER Working Paper No.17 / 2002) (PDF) This paper explores Malawi's twin strategies of decentralisation and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP). It reveals how rural Malawians confront multiple severe constraints, with only non-farm options offering some scope for constructing pathways out of poverty.
				Crop-based farming livelihoods and policies in Malawi (John McDonagh / LADDER Working Paper No.23 / 2002) (PDF) This paper uses the sustainable livelihoods approach to look at the effects of macro policy events over the last 10-15 years on agriculture based livelihoods in Central Malawi. Problems experienced appear to result not so much from the policy itself but from lack of resources and institutional capacity for its implementation.
				Livelihoods and Rural Poverty Reduction in Kenya (H.Ade Freeman / Frank Ellis / Eddie Allison / LADDER Working Paper No.33 / 2003) (PDF) This paper, describes research that links micro level outcomes to macro level strategies for with respect to rural poverty reduction in Kenya. It is set against a background in which a new government, elected at the end of 2002, is trying to break away from unfavourable norms in the conduct of public life.
				The SCL project considers way of supporting different livelihoods in South Asia
				Delivery Services to the Poor in Coastal Areas (PDF) This paper focuses upon delivery services to the poor in coastal areas. It discusses both those services which are not specific to the coast, and depicts those which are - such as protection and response to disasters and fisheries support and extension. Its key point is that poverty is not only a product of the limited access of particular groups of people to skills and resources, but also a function of their ability to access other services that are essential to their livelihoods.
				Coastal Migration and Mobility (PDF) Migration and mobility in the coast in South Asia has long been part of livelihood strategies of the coastal poor. However, as new pressures operate in the coast, migration patterns are changing and migration may be becoming more widespread as a livelihood strategy. This paper highlights the different types of migration and mobility that occur in coastal areas around the Bay of Bengal and the effects of migration on the poor. It examines what is currently being done to address migration and coastal poverty and outlines key areas of guidance in dealing with coastal migration in the future.
				Sustainably Enhancing and Diversifying Livelihoods of the Coastal Poor Policy briefing paper (PDF) Working paper (PDF) The coastal poor are caught up in a complex web of interacting forces and changes. Besides the natural complexity of the interface between land and sea that characterises the coast, conditions there are also influenced by a wide diversity of sectors and the surrounding social, economic, institutional and political context. This paper considers changes in the livelihoods of the poor, how the poor and development agencies have responded to those changes, and what can be done to sustainably enhance and diversify the livelihoods of the poor in the future.
				Livelihood Protection and Promotion
				The Livelihood Options project reviews poverty reduction schemes aimed at both protecting and promoting livelihoods.
				Welfare Policies and Politics: A Study of Three Government Interventions in Andhra Pradesh, India (Jos Mooij / ODI / Working Paper No.181 / 2002) (PDF) This report focuses on three different welfare policy areas in Andhra Pradesh, namely the government's response to the crisis in the handloom weaving sector, the Public Distribution System (PDS), and a credit scheme for women. It explores how they are operationalised and investigates various political aspects of them.
				Reaching the Poor: The Influence of Policy and Administrative Processes on the Implementation of Government Poverty Schemes in India (Radhika Nayak/ N.C. Saxena / John Farrington / ODI/ Working Paper No.175 / 2002) (PDF) This study reviews four broad types of poverty reduction scheme- those aiming to: achieve income transfer to the poorest; enhance the quality of infrastructure, particularly in relation to natural resources; create employment as a major objective and enhance self-employment possibilities.