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In order to develop thinking on SL approaches
further, a forum of leading international cooperation agencies
met at the Inter-agency Forum, Operationalizing Participatory
Ways of Applying Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches, 7-11
March 2000 in Siena, Italy, to share experience and learning.
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Background
Eliminating poverty is the
greatest challenge the world faces in the twenty-first
century. The global community is committed to a series
of international development targets that set clear
"milestones" on the road to achieving this aim.
Experience has shown that people, and not the
resources they manage, must be placed at the centre of
development if poverty is to be reduced and eliminated.
Poor people must actively participate in their own
development. Sustainable Livelihoods approaches to
poverty reduction bring together the lessons of "best
practice" in a set of principles supported by an
analytical framework. |
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The Inter-agency Forum
In order to develop
thinking on SL approaches further, a forum of leading
international cooperation agencies met at the
Inter-agency Forum, Operationalizing Participatory Ways
of Applying Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches, 7-11
March 2000 in Siena, Italy, to share experience and
learning.
The Inter-agency Forum was executed by
the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and
supported by the Department for International
Development (DFID), with the
objective to work together and learn from each other in
order to reduce poverty.
The Forum brought
together several agencies that had been applying or
developing sustainable livelihoods (SL) approaches in
their work, including CARE, the Department for
International Development (DFID), the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO),
the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD),
the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
and the World Food Programme (WFP).
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Purpose
The purpose of the Forum was to:
enable development practitioners to assess the
relative merits of a variety of SL approaches in
programme or project design and implementation
strengthen the capacity of participating agencies to
apply SL approaches
identify issues that need to be resolved if SL
approaches are to be institutionalized
The Forum
was expected to provide participants with the
opportunity to:
share experiences of applying SL approaches in a
range of field projects
explore and plan how best to put SL approaches into
practice. |
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Lessons Learned
The forum was organized
around the analysis of a series of case studies. Each
agency prepared and presented one or more of its own
project experiences as a basis for analysing how SL
approaches could have strengthened the project. The
eight major case studies were selected to typify the
range of situations confronted by development agencies
and a further four mini case studies dealt with issues
of gender, rural micro-finance and institutional
restructuring. During the discussions, a number of
lessons emerged … |
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Key
Lessons
Lessons
Learned
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Grey Areas
Participants agreed that there
were still many areas that needed further clarification.
These included: " SL approaches may help us to
understand the poor, but do they help us reach them? "
What are the most effective entry points for SL
approaches? " What is the best way to achieve policy
changes? " If the SL framework helps us widen the range
of possible project interventions, does it give adequate
guidance on how to prioritize them? " What indicators
can we use to assess the impact of SL approaches? " What
are the perceived omissions or inadequacies of the DFID
SL framework? There was substantial agreement on what
the unresolved issues were, but no consensus on how to
address them. Participants thought that more discussion,
informed by feedback from applying SL approaches to
project or programme implementation, would shed light on
these areas. |
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Conclusions
The operationalization of SL approaches remains a
major challenge. Effective utilization of SL approaches
requires flexibility in planning and implementation that
institutions and agencies often lack. Inherent in the
implementation of SL approaches is the capacity by
agencies to adopt flexible procedures that enable
learning by doing and respond to what is learned. Issues
such as decision-making, effective mobilization to reach
the poor, power, and equity, need to be explored
further.
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