Livelihood Strategies

Sayed Nurullah Azad

RMMRU & Media-mix Enterprise

Definition of Livelihood
A livelihood comprises people, their capabilities and their means of living, including food, income and assets. Tangible assets are resources and stores, and intangible assets are claims and access.

A livelihood is environmentally sustainable when it maintains or enhances the local and global assets in which livelihoods depend, and has net beneficial effects on other livelihoods.
A livelihood is socially sustainable which can cope with and recover from stress and shocks, and provide for future generations.
Chambers and Conway (1991)

Livelihood Study
Livelihood studies are generally used to cluster information along several analytical categories:

Context
social, economic, political and environmental dimensions, conditions and trends.

Livelihood resources
financial, natural, physical, human, political and social capital

Institutional Processes and Organisational Structures

GO, civil society, private sector

Livelihood Strategies productive and exchange activities and coping strategies

Livelihood outcomes food security, health security, habitat security, education security, safety and environmental security

The Study and its Target Group

Several previous livelihood reviews endorsed DfIDs Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) framework. Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches (SLAs) prioritise in the following fashion: 1. people's assets (tangible and intangible); 2. their ability to withstand shocks (the vulnerability context); 3. policies and institutions that reflect poor people's priorities, rather than those of the elite.

Using the SLA frame work we can conclude:

Poor is a non homogenous category in Bangladesh (access to resources and exposure to risk is different for even different households)
Using poverty ranking of previous studies we can divide poor of these areas into three categories

poor (have some land; can meet up to 6 months of food security from their own production; have good ties with relatively better off families; can secure employment; and can access credit in times of crises)

Social poor

moderate or tomorrows

Helpless poor marginal or extreme poor

(functionally landless in terms of homestead; could meet food security for 2 months through sharecropping;

both male/female sell their labour during the off and peak seasons; lack of link to wealthier families limited access to (timely) credit limited access to (timely) employment)

Bottom poor poorest of the poor

(have no land and lives on borrowed or common land; they have food insecurity round the year; have 1 meal per day during the lean season;

children do not go to school; have a single set of clothes; work as wage labour round the year; sell labour in advance / pledge labour; have very low social capital no access to credit during crisis).

Livelihood and River Basin Areas

S

Dimensions of Livelihood
Temporal Periodisation according to RbE and flooding Seasonality of occupation

Spatial Specific nature of livelihood depending on soil / crop variations Spatial / traditional orientation or root of occupations Pre-existing migrant communities from other districts, still regarded as outsiders

Preparedness & adjustments

Nature of settlements chars (new and old) / mainland / riverbank Nature of RE chapa bhanga / bhanga / haria bhanga early warning & harnessing indigenous knowledge shifting and rebuilding

Displacement and settlement

Its is always ad hoc results in environment destruction NGOs do not facilitate the settlement process If NGOs adopt a strict timetable for moving in to the settlements this might not work at all. Settlements are not linked to income generating activities

These activities and the trade, scale and type could be decided upon by the RbE affected people Livestock cannot be attended and fed by the poor displaced people Settlements are often insensitive to the host community

The Destitution ladder

Loss of agricultural land / livestock due to riverbank erosion Income loss and coping strategies Vulnerability and adaptation through diet change, borrowing, seasonal labour migration etc. Lack of organisation(al support) at local level Loss of better social status Lack of access to financial capital Sell of liquid assets, productive assets (land cattle etc.)

Livelihood management &

Mismanagement
S Aspects of Management
F Observation of early signs F Organisation at individual level F Removal of household goods F Erection of temporary shelter F Quick selling of goods/animals F Work as labour in local agriculture F Organisation at community level

F Agricultural (crop / land / cow) loss >

community support > income substitution through livestock rearing / fishing / wage labour / sharecropper F Social security of women (headed households) ensured by community F Displacement and shelter in adjacent / relatives places F Displacement and relocation in new lands (khas and / or private as uthuli) F Displacement and resettlement utilising backup (land / money-lending / reemerged char in other locations)

Alternatives F F Switching to small businesses Use of productive land bought elsewhere F Sub-contracting several arrangements of sharecropping F Seasonal migration becomes routine F Getting decisions from local and informal organisations (e.g. panchi) of char areas in favour Asset rebuilding for long term gains > GO / NGO support (loan / grant)

Dimensions of Mismanagement
F Lack of understanding in early days of RbE F Lack of organisation and local standard pricing for distress sell F Sudden loss & no help of neighbours / locals / relatives - previous enmity with the local elite/interest groups - pre existing difficult relations F Lack of access to physical capital F Lack of access to human capital (family level)

F Lack and/or loss of social networking and capital F Lack of political capital articulate and a single voice F Arbitrariness in decisions of shamaj and shalish - land reclamation - redistribution of social wealth F Social insecurity of family / women due to seasonal migration of the male F Reinforcement and re imposition of earlier elite (community solidarity among the ultra poor does not grow even after RbE)

F Lack of understanding / operational expediency of the GO / NGO officials F Lack of required diversity in both market and skill F Lack of links to the market F Lack of stocking of savings / grain storage / livestock / trees / bamboo F Lack of savings (tendency of withholding investment in productive ventures in the post displacement phase)

Different Options for Livelihood

Strategy
S Exchange Activities

Mixture of local labour, agriculture and seasonal migration Livestock & poultry (only share rearing) Accepting relatives help / shelter as they want to repay for previous helps from the RbE victim

Petty trading (may be starting with vegetables grown in the homestead garden) Relying on neighbours to feed children and 1 meal per day

Poverty Ranking
Helpless Poor >> Bottom Poor

Coping Strategies
Networking with relatives and depending on them Hand to mouth (daily labour in the locality) Long term migration (family or only husband) Moving away from business to peddling Peddling and sharecropping Bottom Poor >> Helpless Poor

Productive Strategies

Local labour, Agriculture (share cropping or small piece of own land), Livestock (share rearing), Other income sources at the locality like shop keeping by one member of the family, working at restaurant in the upazilla or part time job as a carpenter etc.

 Migration and taking land lease at home Disinvesting (in chars) and moving towards main land Established due to back up (landed) at more than one place and now investing through credit offers to viable borrowers

Social Poor >> Established / Wealthy

Pertinent questions in a study on RbE in North West Bangladesh

S S S Gender empowerment Community mobilization long term awareness and coping ability Institutional responses GO / NGO role in long term planning and action Legal aspects

Sustainable living in the River basin area and livelihood the way forward
S S
S S S

Social forestry Crop diversification and awareness programme Community fisheries (common pool resources) Income diversification and linking with settlement Development of communication and commuting for easier access to resources

S S

Providing incentives to field level officers / workers of GO, NGO River management should be combined with input from social scientists Land rights have to be established & propagated by the Govt. / NGOs

Thank You