The Adaptive Livelihood Framework:putting concepts to practice

ISBN 978-955-9417-58-3

The Adaptive Livelihood Framework:putting concepts into practice

© 2011

DURYOG NIVARAN SECRETARIATW | www.duryognivaran.org

and

PRACTICAL ACTION(Regional Programme – India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka)

W | www.practicalaction.org, www.janathakshan.net

T + 94 - 11 - 2829412

F + 94 - 11 - 2856188

Text: Buddika Hapuarachchi, Vajira Hettige, Bhathiya Kekulandala, Dhanushi Senanayake, Vishaka Hidellage and Ramona Miranda

Other Contributions: Sandya Wickremarachchi, Sampath Abeyratne, Erwin Rathnaweera, Mega Ganeshan, Asoka Ajanta and Lafir Mohamed

Cover and illustrations: Minidu Abeysekera

Interactive CD: Damith Jayasinghe

Photographs: Practical Action staff

Cover booklet printer: Neo Graphics

Why this CD With increasing disasters being reported continuously all over the world, including disaster risk reduction in development has become an imperative. The changing climate and its impact on poor increase the urgency to deal with it holistically.

Practical Action, together with other members of the Duryog Nivaran network, has been working in the arena of disaster risk reduction for over two decades, and has developed and promoted approaches, frameworks and tools that is being used by policy makers and development practitioners in many parts of the world.

Past contributions include the Disaster Resistant Sustainable Livelihoods approach, the community based disaster risk management and the decentralized disaster risk management, inclusion of gender aspects in DRR, engaging media in reducing risk, to name a few. The South Asia Disaster reports (SADR) of 2005, 2008 and 2010 have taken the thinking in DRR further along.

The latest SADR 2010 introduced the Adaptive Livelihoods Framework (ALF) which has created interest. The ALF is an analytical tool that helps understand local contexts and risks and can guide us together with community, to come to a more sustainable solution. Emphasis is also given on the analysis of gender roles and application in designing livelihood strategies for women, considering the disproportionate impact of climate change on women.

This CD provides practical guidance to development practitioners on how to use the ALF and its tools using your own data to carry out the analysis.

The Adaptive Livelihood Framework – a planning tool for development practitioners Poverty results in people having fragile livelihoods, and vice versa.

Development practitioners in the DRR field have always faced challenges, because addressing risks is not easy. Duryog Nivaran has always argued that DRR is only possible through sustainable development. This has proved to be challenging.

Poor people’s access to livelihoods assets is low; and their links to institutions and services (enabling environment) is low. This results in weak livelihoods which in turn pushes them further deep into poverty. This vicious cycle keeps the poor trapped in a deprived situation. Poverty forces people to seek out risky areas, where they settle and build their livelihoods, tending to overuse natural assets, which makes matters worse.

On top of this, climate change complicates the situation. This is creating diverse reactions at different localities. More frequent and severe hazards affect poor communities dependant on natural resource based livelihoods, making their already weak and vulnerable livelihood asset base weaker. This adaptive livelihoods framework (ALF) is a step towards providing some guidance to taking DRR and CCA into designing development.

Strengthening livelihood assets and the enabling environment is important to improve poor people’s livelihoods. The ALF helps understand local contexts and risks and can guide us together with community, to derive a more sustainable solution.

The ALF, is an extension of the disaster resistant sustainable livelihoods framework (Practical Action & RDPI for Duryog Nivaran, 2005) and focuses on livelihood assets and strengthening these assets in a changing climate.

The Adaptive Livelihoods Framework (ALF)

How to operationalising the Adaptive Livelihoods Framework The ALF can be operationalised in a step-by-step manner to build the adaptive capacities of vulnerable groups. ALF targets development practitioners and employs simple but customized tools to put the ALF into practice at 3 levels.

• Assessing increasing and changing risks (including heterogeneity of local risks and vulnerabilities)

• Assessing livelihood asset base

• Assessing the enabling environment

The assessments are important to identify the overall vulnerability context of the target community. The process of information generation ensures the active participation of local community, harnessing their knowledge and building their capacities. Participatory process also ensure that marginalised sections of the community participates throughout the process.

The tools help to identify the overall risk of the community, capacity and vulnerabilities of the livelihood asset base; and the strength and weaknesses of the enabling environment. This will help planners and practitioners to devise strategies to build adaptive capacities of poor communities. Although the application of ALF is in the early stages, development organisations and practitioners are encouraged to practice this in their own programmes of work and develop it further. The CD provides the tool and examples of its application.

This first version of “The Adaptive Livelihood Framework: putting concepts into practice” CD will be subject to consultations for further improvement. We welcome inputs, insight and experiences from users of the CD. Please provide your feedback to: dn.network@practicalaction.org.lk

Including gender concerns into practiceDisasters affect women and men differently due to the different roles they occupy in society/community, the different responsibilities given to them in societies and the differences in their capacities, needs and vulnerabilities. When targeting the inclusion of women, gender based roles in different livelihoods need to be looked at.

• Women experience disasters and climate change differently, thus have different priorities and needs when trying to increase their adaptive capacity

• Cultures and traditions may disadvantage women in inheriting or owning physical or natural assets

• Lack of collateral reduces women’s access to credit and other financial assets.

• Women’s social capital and influence in social networks may also differ from those of men due to cultural norms

• Women may also have less human capital; as physical labourers

• Knowledge and access to information has a gender bias

• How they are able to shape and engage the enabling environment is different.

Incorporating gender disaggregated information is important to capture the gender based roles and responsibilities of the livelihoods and how those get affected due to climate change.

The CD details a tool that helps us to acknowledge gender based differential impacts of disaster risk. Application of this showed yet again that women are more vulnerable to disaster risk and the local impacts of climatic changes. Thus, the interventions we plan need to take this into account and incorporate inclusive strategies.

PRACTICAL ACTION is a UK based non-governmental development organisation concerned with small scale technology development, using technology to challenge poverty, working with poor women and men around the world. Working together with communities. Practical Action’s regional office in Colombo, oversees work in Sri Lanka, India & Pakistan, aiming to build the technical skills of poor people in the region enabling them to improve the quality of their lives and that of future generations.

Duryog Nivaran is a South Asia network on disaster mitigation. Initiated in 1994, Duryog Nivaran is a network of individuals and organizations working in South Asia active in bringing in debates on conceptual issues of disasters and development. The network’s aim is to reduce the vulnerability of communities to disasters and conflicts by integrating the alternative perspective at conceptual, policy and implementation levels of disaster mitigation and development programmes in the South Asian region.