Sustainable rural livelihoods: a summary of research in Mali and Ethiopia
Rosalind Goodrich
July 2001
INSTITUTE OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
Brighton, Sussex BN1 9RE
England
Contents
Introduction 1
The problem the research sought to analyse 1
Summary of results and conclusion 2
Livelihood diversification 2
Agricultural intensification 3
Migration 4
The intellectual approach 4
What is a sustainable livelihood? 5
Livelihood resources 6
The idea of a livelihood portfolio 7
The influence of institutions and organisations 7
Operational implications of the framework approach to
analysis of sustainable livelihoods 8
The settings of the research 8
Research methods 9
How do poor rural households construct a sustainable livelihood? 12
Economic diversification 12
Geographical location
Who diversifies – the rich or the poor?
Livelihood diversification and the development of local and
wider markets
Are livelihoods becoming more diverse and if so, why?
How do household development cycles and livelihood
diversification opportunities interact?
The role of institutions in determining livelihood diversification
Opportunities and outcomes
Agricultural intensification 16
Migration 20
How does policy influence livelihood strategies and can poor people
influence the policy process? 22
A model of how policy affects livelihoods 22
Can poor people influence policy? 23
Pursuing a policy-centred approach 24
Annex 1
Research reports from the sustainable livelihoods research programme
Annex 2
Livelihoods Connect – www.livelihoods.org
Annex 3
Other references
Sustainable rural livelihoods
Introduction
This report summarises the results of research which explored alternative routes to achieving more sustainable livelihoods in two countries: Mali and Ethiopia. Research on the same topic in Bangladesh will not be discussed here. The work took place over a period of three years and was a joint enterprise between the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex (IDS), the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the Poverty Research Unit at the University of Sussex, the Institut de l’Economie Rurale in Mali and in Ethiopia, FARM-Africa, SOS-Sahel and Awassa College of Agriculture.
The problem the research sought to analyse is set out below, followed by a summary of the results and conclusions of the research. Then there is a longer discussion of the three main areas of work. A list of research publications, all of which are available from IDS, is at the end of the report.
The problem the research sought to analyse
Many people’s lives are a quest to create a secure, sustainable livelihood for themselves and their families. Outside forces, be they natural, political, economic or social all conspire either to make this more or less difficult. This research aimed to find what particular factors enable some people to be successful in their quest when others fail, and what interventions by policy makers might help both groups of people.
The research looked particularly at the part played by local, national and international institutions on the building of livelihoods. Researchers wanted to see how institutions could influence the access to benefits like land, money, or employment, of individuals and households. Access to all of these could affect the ability to make a living and achieve security.
A major concern of the research programme was to illuminate how poor rural households adapt to changes in entitlements and in institutions, looking particularly at whether they resort to migration, adopt a more diverse livelihood strategy or increase agricultural production through agricultural intensification or extensification. It focused on the policies already in place that would shape the choices made by local people about their livelihoods. Making the right choice could spell the difference between successful, sustainable livelihoods and a household or whole community continuing in, or returning to poverty and environmental degradation.
An aim of the research programme, therefore, was to identify new policies that would enhance the ability of people to construct sustainable livelihoods. The programme had a subsidiary aim to show how it would be possible to modify already-existing policies, especially those adopted to further macro-economic reform (structural adjustment programmes, for instance) – to assist this process.
Summary of results and conclusions
· The research framework identified three strategies pursued by rural people in furtherance of achieving a more sustainable livelihood: migration, livelihood diversification and agricultural intensification/extensification. One of the conclusions drawn is that they are all linked and there are trade-offs that must be made between them in order to achieve the sustainable livelihoods goal. None can be viewed in isolation.
· The research has confirmed the usefulness of adopting a livelihoods framework to understand the way rural households cope in poor areas.
Livelihood diversification
· The existence of local opportunities and levels of population density seem to influence possibilities for diversification as much as factors like levels of rainfall, geographical location and transport links (see below)
· Poorer families tend to diversify activities in order to survive a crisis, as opposed to richer families which diversify to accumulate assets
· There is likely to be more diversification activity taking place in higher potential, higher density farming areas, where the local economy provides a higher level and broader range of options, than in more marginal areas with low yields, lower population density and a poor range of local opportunities. In Mali, however, the results were not clear cut. In Dalonguebougou, for instance, there was a wide range of diversification activities, despite the area receiving less rainfall and being risk prone. A number of groups had migrated to the village and part of their diversification activities, thus creating opportunities for trading and shop-keeping for local families
· The number of available workers in a household will have an impact on the potential for diversification, but the quality of labour management will also play a crucial role in the success of diversification strategies
· The key policy options stemming from the diversification work are set out below in Box 1. However, there are limits to what can be achieved through policy interventions aimed at reducing rural poverty in Ethiopia and Mali, given current constraints on governments caused by economic structural adjustment programmes as well as long histories of poor citizen-state relations.
Agricultural intensification
· Different pathways of agricultural change – capital- or labour-led intensification or extensification - can exist side by side within a site and a household may follow more than one path concurrently on different parts of their land
· The effects of agricultural intensification may be positive or negative: for example, intensification may have a positive effect on production, but negative effects on environmental sustainability and equality
· A household’s decision on which path to follow will depend on a range of factors, central to which are the resources available to them, the institutions which mediate access to resources, the historical background, and the policy context
· Capital-led intensification is more easily influenced by policy than labour-led intensification providing institutional linkages, like agricultural inputs and credit supply, are in place. In Mali, for instance the institutional linkages that provide inputs and credit only cover the ‘high potential’ area of the country, so in the ‘low potential’ areas capital-led intensification is not more easily influenced by policy
· If the flexibility of a household to make its own choices about which path to agricultural intensification to follow is reduced, then the chances of farmers making the best choice in the light of the available resources, the institutional arrangements and an assessment of risk are also reduced
· The research had policy implications in three areas:
- livestock disease: unless this problem is addressed, it is unlikely that any policies to combat poverty and improve livelihoods will succeed
- flexible extension policies and credit: greater need for flexibility in capital-led intensification packages but also need for policies that do not damage opportunities for the labour-led path, where this is the only path possible to follow for a household. A functioning and flexible credit market is essential
- institutions: policies to support successful and sustainable intensification of agriculture must take into account that not all institutions can be influenced directly. The institutions that are the hardest to reach, may be very effective in facilitating the following of certain paths to intensification
· The interaction between these complex local (and often informal) institutions and more formal institutional arrangements for natural resource management, in the context of community-based natural resource management on the one hand and decentralised state-led programmes on the other, is a key area for future research
Migration
· Migration plays a central role in the livelihoods of rural households and communities, rich and poor. Policies should, therefore, be more sensitive to the existence of regular population movement
· Different household structures and gender influence who migrates and who decides about migration and the use of remittances; migration is not strongly correlated with poverty, assets or education, although types of migration are likely to be
· Policies should take account of the possibility that migration increases inequality. Migration is embedded in social relations which has disadvantages for some household and community members but creates opportunities for supportive policies like the provision of information about migration opportunities, facilitation of remittances and enhancement of the productive impact of remittances
The intellectual approach
The concept of ‘sustainable rural livelihoods’ is important in the debate about rural development, poverty reduction and environmental management. There were parts of the approach, however, that the project researchers felt should be clarified in order that the ultimate aim of the research programme might be achieved. A particular issue was how it could be decided when someone had built a sustainable livelihood for themselves; that is, what livelihood resources, institutional processes and strategies influenced success or failure for different groups of people and what were the practical, operational and policy implications of adopting the approach itself.
To this end, a framework for analysing the approach, and therefore clarifying the above, was constructed (see Figure 1 below). It had at its heart one key question:
Given a particular context, what combination of livelihood resources results in the ability to follow what combination of livelihood strategies with what outcomes?
Cutting across this was the recognition that certain institutional processes would influence the ability of a household or community to carry out a particular strategy and achieve an outcome.
The framework could be applied at many levels: to an individual or household, at village and district, region and national level. It was important to specify the level of analysis and to analyse any interaction between levels, acknowledging the associated positive or negative effect on livelihoods.
Figure 1 The sustainable livelihoods framework[1]
What is a sustainable livelihood?
The starting point for answering the key question of the analytical framework was to get a precise answer to the other question: what is a sustainable livelihood? Only by settling this could desirable outcomes be identified. The IDS research team took as its definition the following:
A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks, maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, while not undermining the natural resource base.[2]
While this definition could, in fact, be interpreted to give at least five ways of assessing outcomes (depending on whether the focus was on livelihoods or sustainability) it illustrated that the concept of sustainable livelihoods was a composite of many ideas and interests. Ian Scoones in his paper Sustainable rural livelihoods: a framework for analysis (Working Paper 72, 1998, IDS) stated that the important thing to recognise was that the priorities were always subject to negotiation, with some being more important than others at certain times. Making the policy choices to achieve the most beneficial outcomes could be a process of negotiation, enabling the right choices to be made.
Livelihood resources
The analytical framework described by Scoones in his paper adopted an economics metaphor to describe the basic material and social, intangible and tangible assets that people have in their possession. These resources were the ‘capital’ base from which livelihoods could be constructed. He offered a simple set of definitions:
Natural capital – natural resource stocks (soil, water, air, genetic resources etc) and environmental services (hydrological cycle, pollution sinks etc) from which resource flows and services useful for livelihoods are derived
Economic or financial capital, including infrastructure – the capital base (cash, credit/debit, savings etc), infrastructure, and other economic assets which are essential for the pursuit of any livelihood strategy
Human capital – skills, knowledge, ability to work and good health important for the successful pursuit of livelihood strategies
Social capital – the social resources (networks, social relations, associations etc) upon which people draw when pursuing different strategies
Whilst more ‘capital’ sources could be identified, the main point was that in order to construct livelihoods, people should successfully combine all or some of these ‘capital’ endowments.
Identifying what combinations of capital or livelihoods resources are required for different livelihoods strategies was a key part, then, of this programme’s analytical process. As mentioned already, it focused on three particular strategies: agricultural intensification/extensification, livelihood diversification and migration. These were considered to be the realistic choices open to people in rural areas. Understanding, in the context of people’s lives, how different livelihood resources are combined in the pursuit of different livelihood strategies was, therefore, critical to the research.
The idea of a livelihood portfolio
The combination of activities that were followed in carrying out a strategy were termed the ‘livelihood portfolio’. These activities could be carried out at different levels: as an individual, a household and at village level, as well as at regional or national level. Each portfolio would be different, containing a range of activities, carried out at a variety of levels in response to the resources available and socio-economic conditions – gender, age, and income levels for instance - prevailing. Over time, indeed over generations, the portfolio of activities might change as local and external conditions changed. It was important, therefore, that the research programme included in its analysis the dynamic nature of livelihood strategies.
In fact, whether livelihood portfolio combinations resulted in positive or negative change in relation to the range of sustainable livelihood outcome indicators was a key issue. Both the number of sustainable livelihoods created and their quality could be increased or improved in an area if livelihood resources were combined creatively. Scoones (1998) gives the example of degraded land being transformed with the investment of labour and skill, resulting in the accumulation of natural capital and an increase in the potential for more livelihood opportunities. But a course of action taken by an individual or a household might have negative as well as positive effects, therefore it was vital to look at the net impact of adopting a particular livelihood strategy on a wider group, over time.