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I
have just seen the posting relating to the paper by Albu and
Scott SL and micro enterprise. I think that it makes a major
contribution to the field and fills a gap that many of us
have found when trying to apply the SL approach.
In
recent work on Energy, Poverty and Gender carried out by the
IDS and Chinese colleagues the Sustainable Livelihood language
was used. It provided a number of insights, but did not really
provide new insights about gender relations within households,
about energy conversion and end-use technologies and the operating
of these entities as small and micro enterprises. The very
interesting insights that did emerge from the IDS report appeared
to come in spite of the SL approach rather than because of
it!
The
interesting complexities of wider definition of "poverty"
emphasised by the SLA probably has probably diverted attention
from simpler income increasing activities (many of which will
be micro enterprises or self-employment) and the role that
technical change plays in increasing income generating capability
of resource poor people. Albu and Scott have done something
about it.
By
the way am I the only one to be confused by the difference
between the IDS based site: www.livelihoods.org,
and that on which the Albu paper is located - technology for
sustainable livelihood site: http://livelihoodtechnology.org/
is there an excessive duplication of such sites? Is there
an advantage to have one gateway/portal for sustainable livelihood
discussion? Certainly I am all for "financially sustainable
livelihoods" - should we set up a new site to cover this topic!
Andrew
Barnett
Sussex Research Associates Ltd
33 Southdown Avenue
Brighton BN1 6EH,
UK
Phone +44 (0) 1273-506258
Fax +44 (0) 1273-709504
E-Mail Andrew@sussex-research.co.uk
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