|
|
|
|
Sustainable Livelihoods and FAO
Sustainable Livelihoods concepts are increasingly being used by governments and international organizations, such as the World Bank through its Community-Driven Development approach and its Rural Development Strategy (2002), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) through its Rural Poverty Report 2001, and FAO through its Strategic Framework 2000-2015 .
FAO, with its unique mandate on agricultural (including forestry and fisheries) and rural development, is in a strategic position to find ways and means to help improve the livelihoods of rural dwellers in a sustainable manner. For this purpose, it has gradually incorporated a more holistic perspective in its normative and operational activities that will help in identifying the complementarities, synergies and opportunities for cooperation that will increase the effectiveness of development interventions aimed at enhancing rural livelihoods. In particular, its actions aimed at improving food security, through initiatives such as the Special Programme on Food Security, FIVIMS and the Anti-Hunger Programme.
Rural men and women, especially in poor households, engage in diverse and multiple activities to improve their livelihoods by maximizing income-generating activities, while minimizing vulnerability and risk and achieving other household objectives (improved health, nutrition and education, etc.). These activities may include farm, non-farm actions and other non-agricultural activities, often linked with other activities carried out by rural as well as non-rural households. The effectiveness and profitability of these diverse livelihood systems will vary depending on the general development environment, each household member's access to and control of the asset base, their productive and reproductive roles and responsibilities, their capabilities and their linkages with other rural and urban actors.
Improving rural people's livelihoods, in a sustainable manner, involves:
- viewing rural poor as primary actors in the development process, promoting poor peoples strengths, skills and potentials
- generating a favourable macro environment for rural and agricultural development in accordance with specific comparative advantages promoting positive micro-macro linkages,
- promoting grassroots participation, in a practical and democratic way,
- improving access by the poor to different forms of capital (human, social, financial, physical, natural) to enhance their livelihoods,
- increasing the flexibility and dynamism of responses and projects,
- adopting a multilevel, interdisciplinary approach, conducted in partnership, and lastly,
- ensuring that interventions promote activities that will be socially, economically, institutionally and environmentally sustainable.
Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches build on the evolutionary collection of best practice principles, often use similar Sustainable Livelihoods Analytical Frameworks and are backed up with a growing set of tools. There is a wide range of people centred approaches to rural development, many of which apply a livelihoods perspective, they are often mutually compatible and are oriented to the specific cultural context in which they are used.
|
|
|
