2.3 Livelihoods and Diversification
2.3.1 Livelihoods Overview
Because diversity and complexity are a feature of many coastal communities, Allison and Ellis 2001 argue that fisheries analysis needs to be
holistic and to consider what people do have as well as what they lack. They outline an application of the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach as a helpful tool to
understand the factors that drive the adaptive strategies of rural communities. According to Chambers and Conway 1992 “A livelihood comprises the
capabilities, assets stores, resources, claims and access and activities required for a means of living: a livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover
from stress and shocks, maintain and enhance its capabilities and assets, and provide sustainable livelihood opportunities for the next generation; and which
contributes net benefits to other livelihoods at the local and global levels in the long and short term.” The SLA is used to understand the links between assets and
activities and the institutions that control access to these. It also helps to shed light on the global trends and shocks that may be far outside of the control of
communities but that nevertheless shape their adaptive strategies. Rather than a specific method that can be taken off the shelf and applied in
a given context the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach SLA is a way of thinking about development where livelihoods are the focus IMM, 2008b, Allison and
Horemans, 2009. Previously poverty was understood as a lack of basic needs or human rights but the current paradigm views poverty through qualitative measures
such as feelings of powerlessness, humiliation and insecurity. It is this multi- dimensional nature of poverty, that includes vulnerability and social exclusion
that is captured by the SLA Allison and Horemans, 2006. A typical sequence of analysis following the SLA approach in the field
looks like this modified from DFID, 2000: 1. Sites for poverty reduction selected based on secondary data or existing
partnerships. 2. Secondary data is collected and analysed if available.
3. Key informants are interviewed to gain a better understanding of the sites.
4. One or more community meetings are held to obtain an overview of strengths, constraints, institutions and widely held priorities for action.
5. More detailed participatory work explores the issues raised across different groups.
6. Proposals for action are formed and additional in depth investigation may be required.
These steps show that stakeholder and participatory approaches at the individual, household, sectoral and community level are the bedrock of SLA.
Traditionally policy makers and development practitioners have seen the economic struggles of fishing communities and sought to overcome these with
solutions specific to fisheries, generally industrialisation. Increasingly these institutions are moving from a single sector approach to an understanding of the
factors that drive the adaptive livelihood strategies of rural communities. The livelihoods framework can be set out in many diagrammatic forms but one
example is Figure 2.1. As a descriptive and exploratory tool, the SLA will shed light on the institutions that constrain or empower households in livelihood
strategies and seek to identify those assets that are most valuable. Using the SLA to explore and categorise the interactions in the livelihoods of people enables the
researcher to understand which factors may help to provide opportunities for people to diversify and what constraining factors are limiting that change from
taking place. These constraining factors can be known as binding constraints. Naude 2009 defines a binding constraint as “a constraint on economic growth
and development which, if relieved, would have a more significant impact on promoting growth and development than other constraints. Binding constraints, as
long as they remain in place, would hinder growth, even if other possible constraints or determinants of growth are addressed.” The concept of binding
constraints is important because it emphasizes the prioritizing of resources to targeting the key factors which unlock growth rather than a scattergun approach of
multiple objectives. An example of a binding constraint for the development of freshwater aquaculture is land and water. The poorest are typically the landless
who do not have secure access rights to land and water and projects will fail to help these people unless they tackle this access issue ADB, 2005.
Figure 2.1:
The sustainable livelihoods framework. The pentagon with physical, financial, social, human and natural refers to capital assetsresources. Source
modified from Allison and Horemans, 2006.
The sustainable livelihoods framework practically means grouping responses from key informant interviews, focus groups and community meetings
under the following headings:
Assetresource related factors:
Factors relating to human resources include education, knowledge,
technical skills, entrepreneurial skills, attitudes, sense of identity, beliefs and health.
Factors relating to natural resources include coral reefs and mangrove
habitats, migratory and non-migratory finfish and shellfish, agricultural land, forests and waterways.
Factors relating to financial resources include credit mechanisms, wages
and remittances.
Factors relating to physical resources include infrastructure such as roads,
harbours, ice plants and processing facilities, and equipment such as boats, tractors, engines and nets.
Factors relating to social resources include the relationships and networks
that people depend on both formal such as savings and credit groups and informal neighbours and family members.
Influencing factors that people can, to an extent, affect:
Factors relating to wider society such as culture and ethnicity, conflicts and
security, social organisation and attitudes to the rule of law.
Factors relating to government such as economic policies, political stability,
corruption and bureaucracy and decentralisation.
Factors relating to the private sector such as economic growth engines,
competition and linkages between domestic and regionalglobal markets.
Factors relating to civil society such as NGOs.
Influencing factors that people cannot generally affect:
Factors relating to trends include globalisation, over-exploitation of aquatic
resources and global warming.
Factors relating to seasonality include the abundance and availability of
coastal and terrestrial resources.
Factors relating to shocks include illness or death, natural disasters or loss of
fishing gear These individual factors are highly related. Natural resources can be
converted into financial resources by selling coconuts or into physical resources by felling a tree and building a boat. The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework
provides a mechanism to deal with this interconnecting complexity and together these factors comprise livelihood strategies.
2.3.2 Diversification and Alternative Livelihoods
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