Poverty-Wellbeing.net: Could you please tell us about your personal involvement with the development of livelihood approaches?

Ruedi Baumgartner: My personal involvement dates back to the mid 90’s and was triggered off by a provocative feedback of an Indian colleague on concepts of sustainable land use in semi-arid India. “You experts - our colleague said - you are worried about sustainable management of water, cropland, pastures and forests. Yet, you risk missing out the true concern of farm households in semi-arid areas, which is the loss of sustainable livelihood.” Indeed, I was in those days convinced that watershed development, for instance, could offer proven and generally valid concepts of for sustainable management of natural resources. This conviction made us to overlook that in reality livelihood strategies of farmers are informed by holistic perceptions, embedded in local culture, experience, beliefs, values and worldviews.

We were given a chance to form an Indo-Swiss research team for exploring local notions of sustainable livelihood in semi-arid India. We soon had to acknowledge that occupational diversification and seasonal migration were preferred strategies of poor peasants against deteriorating livelihoods. When farmers in Gujarat, for instance, tried to make us understand, what sustainable livelihood means to them, they used the term “ghar chalava” meaning “keeping the house going.” Indeed, with the image of a house they offered us an appealing metaphor for capturing their own notion of sustainable livelihood: A rural house is, comparable to a livelihood system, resting on a base. The walls of a house separate an inner space, where the family dwells, from an outer space, where it interacts with the society. The roof of the house may represent, metaphorically, what provides orientations to livelihoods and its strategies, since under the roof of a Indian farmhouse the images of gods give spiritual guidance and the photos of the ancestors remind family values and orientation.

Inspired by above notion of “livelihood” our research partner Ruedi Högger suggested to integrate the metaphor of the house into a cross culturally valid archetypical symbol, the mandala which stands for a centred universe. The RLS-framework thus invites to  perceive livelihood through nine squares for acquiring a more holistic of livelihoods and their quest for sustainability.

What does working with the sustainable livelihood approach imply in practice?

RB: Working with the sustainable livelihood approach means for me to focus basically on the following three questions. (1) What are current livelihood strategies, which stakeholders are pursuing? (2) Does the outcome of these existing livelihood strategies enable the stakeholders for sustainable livelihoods? And (3) which are key elements or key factors in the core and in the context of their livelihoods which hinder or which favour sustainable livelihoods? Poverty is here understood as lack or loss of those capabilities required for achieving sustainable livelihood.

By addressing above three questions to people living in poverty, one guiding principle is for me of utmost importance, namely to acknowledge first of all the livelihood  perceptions of the concerned stakeholders: that means their own understanding of their livelihoods. Yet, conceiving afterwards effective support for more sustainable livelihoods means to negotiate development interventions informed by both, the local perceptions of the stakeholders and those gained through external expertise. In practical terms, whether we address urban poor in slums or marginal farmers’ families in semi arid agriculture, our first priority should be to understand the rationale of their livelihood strategies.

Promoting more sustainable livelihoods basically means either to empower them to pursue more effective livelihood strategies or to create a more conducive environment for their existing livelihood strategies. This may imply policies favouring pro poor growth. I would like to illustrate this understanding with the following graph.

What are some challenges in applying the sustainable livelihood approach?

RB: Normally we meet no major problems while addressing the context of a livelihood, when we explore risks and opportunities, assess policy environments, roles of institutions and
organisations. Yet, when it comes to analyse the core of livelihood, we risk falling into a datamining trap, whenever we yield to the temptation of filling meticulously all the nine boxes of the RLS mandala with information or to enumerate all possible items of the asset portfolio of the DFID approach. In such a case our analysis may end up to be exhaustive instead of being holistic.

It is, however, much more productive to apply a focused approach, to start the livelihood analysis with an essential and accessible topic and to extend and link it progressively with other issues, which gain relevance in the exchange with the concerned stakeholders. I take an example from the still ongoing transformation process in Eastern Europe, where people are compelled to develop new livelihood strategies for the post-socialist era. For understanding this process and enabling outside agents for meaningful support we may start, for instance, by inquiring which skills and know-how from socialist times may still be relevant for a market economy and which ones would have to be newly acquired. By asking “who and why”, by addressing gender dimensions of skills etc. we start to navigate through the livelihood framework and use it as a guiding tool for acquiring a more holistic perception.

Yet another challenge is waiting around the corner! Does a holistic analysis compel us to holistic or multidisciplinary projects or programmes? Not at all! The holistic analysis rather allows us to formulate convincing and evidence based development hypothesis for focused interventions. To illustrate this conviction I like to recall a metaphor used by Oxfam for demonstrating the reconciliation between a holistic analysis and focused intervention. “A good acupuncturist uses a holistic diagnosis of the patient followed by very specific treatment at key points. Holistic diagnosis does not mean needles everywhere!” (Oxfam, NRAC 99, cited in Ashley & Carney, 1999).

Any additional reflections you would like to share?

RB: Just to extend on applying livelihood approaches, the following scenario is helpful for me to understand what happens when we apply a livelihood approach. Imagine that somebody would address us with a livelihood approach for exploring our own livelihood strategies. We soon would realise to which extent the interviewer is seeking access to our personal life stories. We would expect the interviewer to acknowledge our feelings and rights to remain the gatekeepers.

Therefore I strongly believe that it is of utmost importance that we request for an invitation for investigating people’s perceptions of their own lives and strategies. Moreover, we must develop the interactions to a level where they becomes interesting and rewarding for persons expected to open us the door to important dimensions of their lives. We become credible when we interact with empathy, out of sincere interest. This includes the obligation to offer feedback on the outcome of our analysis in an appropriate form. Feedback might even be one of the most important ingredients of a sincere and trustful interaction on strength and weakness of livelihood strategies.

Berne, June 2008