Putting people back at the center of livelihood vulnerability analysis

Abstract

The sustainable livelihoods framework is an analytical tool that allows livelihoods to be conceptualized in a holistic manner. This understanding is an important prerequisite to addressing potential vulnerabilities in people’s livelihoods. However, the framework places relatively little emphasis on people and their agency, although this aspect is central to vulnerability analysis. For example, factors hindering or enabling people’s capabilities to convert potentially available assets into desired livelihood outcomes are not explicitly disclosed in the framework. Instead, they are seen as part of the assets themselves or of site-specific processes and institutions. Accordingly, the framework is of limited use to analyze to what extent a person or group is capable of accessing a particular resource or converting them into a livelihood strategy and determining how power and power relations, as well as locally institutionalized practices and relationships, influence vulnerability. Yet, such analytical why-questions are central to the alignment of interventions that address vulnerability with people’s needs and local realities. Otherwise, there is a risk of remaining at a purely descriptive level.We propose an extension and partial redesign of the framework to better account for such dynamics and to better reflect the complex realities of peoples’ livelihoods. In particular, we propose the “personal realization capability” as a complementary component for analyzing the capability of individuals or households to convert assets into livelihood outcomes. The new component allows for a more person-centered analysis that focuses on people, their social living conditions, and the social structure surrounding them.