Livelihood Strategies
Sayed Nurullah Azad
RMMRU & Media-mix Enterprise
Definition of Livelihood
‘A livelihood comprises people,
their capabilities and their means
of living, including food, income
and assets. Tangible assets are
resources and stores, and
intangible assets are claims and
access.
A livelihood is environmentally
sustainable when it maintains or
enhances the local and global assets
in which livelihoods depend, and has
net beneficial effects on other
livelihoods.
A livelihood is socially sustainable
which can cope with and recover
from stress and shocks, and provide
for future generations.’
– Chambers and Conway (1991)
Livelihood Study
Livelihood studies are generally used
to cluster information along several
analytical categories:
Context
– social, economic, political and
environmental dimensions,
conditions and trends.
Livelihood resources
– financial, natural, physical, human,
political and social capital
Institutional Processes and
Organisational Structures
– GO, civil society, private sector
Livelihood Strategies
– productive and exchange activities
and coping strategies
Livelihood outcomes
– food security, health security,
habitat security, education security,
safety and environmental security
The Study and its Target Group
Several previous livelihood reviews endorsed
DfID’s Sustainable Livelihoods Approach
(SLA) framework.
Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches (SLAs)
prioritise in the following fashion:
– 1. people's assets (tangible and intangible);
– 2. their ability to withstand shocks (the
vulnerability context);
– 3. policies and institutions that reflect poor
people's priorities, rather than those of the
elite.
Using the SLA frame work we can
conclude:
‘Poor’ is a non homogenous category in
Bangladesh (access to resources and
exposure to risk is different for even
different households)
Using poverty ranking of previous
studies we can divide poor of these
areas into three categories
Social poor –
moderate or tomorrows’
poor
(have some land;
can meet up to 6 months of food security from
their own production;
have good ties with relatively better off families;
can secure employment; and
can access credit in times of crises)
Helpless poor – marginal or extreme poor
(functionally landless in terms of homestead;
could meet food security for 2 months through
sharecropping;
both male/female sell their labour during the off
and peak seasons;
lack of link to wealthier families
– limited access to (timely) credit
– limited access to (timely) employment)
Bottom poor – poorest of the poor
(have no land and lives on borrowed or
common land;
they have food insecurity round the year;
have 1 meal per day during the lean season;
children do not go to school;
have a single set of clothes;
work as wage labour round the year;
sell labour in advance / pledge labour;
have very low social capital
– no access to credit during crisis).
Livelihood and River Basin Areas
S
Dimensions of Livelihood
Temporal
Periodisation according to RbE and flooding
Seasonality of occupation
Spatial
Specific nature of livelihood depending on
soil / crop variations
Spatial / traditional orientation or root of
occupations
Pre-existing migrant communities from other
districts, still regarded as outsiders
S
Preparedness & adjustments
Nature of settlements
– chars (new and old) / mainland /
riverbank
Nature of RE
– chapa bhanga / bhanga /
haria bhanga
early warning & harnessing indigenous
knowledge
shifting and rebuilding
S
Displacement and settlement
– Its is always ad hoc – results in
environment destruction
– NGOs do not facilitate the settlement
process
– If NGOs adopt a strict timetable for
moving in to the settlements this
might not work at all.
– Settlements are not linked to income
generating activities
–
These activities and the trade, scale
and type could be decided upon by
the RbE affected people
–Livestock cannot be attended and fed
by the poor displaced people
Settlements are often insensitive to the
host community
The Destitution ladder
 Loss of agricultural land / livestock due
to riverbank erosion
 Income loss and coping strategies
 Vulnerability and adaptation through
diet change, borrowing, seasonal
labour
migration etc.
 Lack of organisation(al support) at local
level
 Loss of better social status
 Lack of access to financial capital
 Sell of liquid assets, productive assets
(land cattle etc.)
Livelihood management &
Mismanagement
S
Aspects of Management
F Observation of early signs
F Organisation at individual level
F
Removal of household goods
F
Erection of temporary shelter
F
Quick selling of goods/animals
F
Work as labour in local agriculture
F Organisation at community level
F Agricultural (crop / land / cow) loss >
community support > income substitution
through livestock rearing / fishing / wage
labour / sharecropper
F Social security of women (headed
households) ensured by community
F Displacement and shelter in adjacent /
relatives’ places
F Displacement and relocation in new
lands (khas and / or private as uthuli)
F Displacement and resettlement utilising
backup (land / money-lending / reemerged char in other locations)
Alternatives
F Switching to small businesses
F
Use of productive land bought
elsewhere
F Sub-contracting several arrangements
of sharecropping
F Seasonal migration becomes routine
F Getting decisions from local and
informal organisations (e.g. panchi) of
char areas in favour
Asset rebuilding for long term gains > GO
/ NGO support (loan / grant)
S
Dimensions of Mismanagement
F Lack of understanding in early days of
RbE
F Lack of organisation and local standard
pricing for distress sell
F Sudden loss & no help of neighbours /
locals / relatives
- previous enmity with the local
elite/interest groups
- pre existing difficult relations
F Lack of access to physical capital
F Lack of access to human capital
(family level)
F Lack and/or loss of social networking
and capital
F Lack of political capital – articulate and
a single voice
F Arbitrariness in decisions of shamaj
and shalish
- land reclamation
- redistribution of social wealth
F Social insecurity of family / women due
to seasonal migration of the male
F Reinforcement and re imposition of
earlier elite (community solidarity among
the ultra poor does not grow even after
RbE)
F Lack of understanding / operational
expediency of the GO / NGO officials
F Lack of required diversity in both
market and skill
F Lack of links to the market
F Lack of stocking of savings / grain
storage / livestock / trees / bamboo
F Lack of savings (tendency of
withholding investment in productive
ventures in the post displacement
phase)
Different Options for Livelihood
Strategy
S
Exchange Activities
Mixture of local labour, agriculture and
seasonal migration
Livestock & poultry (only share rearing)
Accepting relatives’ help / shelter as they
want to repay for previous helps from the
RbE victim
Petty trading (may be starting with
vegetables grown in the homestead
garden)
Relying on neighbours to feed children
and 1 meal per day
Poverty Ranking
Helpless Poor
>> Bottom Poor
S
Coping Strategies
–
Networking with relatives and
depending on them
Hand to mouth (daily labour in the
locality)
Long term migration (family or only
husband)
Moving away from business to
peddling
Peddling and sharecropping
–
–
–
–
Bottom Poor
>> Helpless Poor
S
Productive Strategies
– Local labour,
– Agriculture (share cropping or small
piece of own land),
– Livestock (share rearing),
– Other income sources at the locality like
shop keeping by one member of the
family, working at restaurant in the
upazilla or part time job as a carpenter etc.
– Migration and taking land lease at home
–
Disinvesting (in chars) and moving
towards main land
– Established due to back up (landed) at
more than one place and now investing
through credit offers to viable borrowers
Social Poor >> Established / Wealthy
Pertinent questions in a study on
RbE in North West Bangladesh
S
S
S
S
Gender empowerment
Community mobilization – long
term awareness and coping ability
Institutional responses – GO /
NGO role in long term
planning and action
Legal aspects
Sustainable living in the River basin
area and livelihood – the way forward
S
S
S
S
S
Social forestry
Crop diversification and awareness
programme
Community fisheries (common pool
resources)
Income diversification and linking
with settlement
Development of communication and
commuting for easier access to
resources
S
S
S
Providing incentives to field
level officers / workers of GO, NGO
River management should be
combined with input from social
scientists
Land rights have to be established
& propagated by the Govt. / NGOs
Thank You