Drawing on the Chambers definition as well, DFID (Britain's Department for International Development) stresses that there are many ways of applying livelihoods approaches (there is not one single approach) but that there are six underlying principles to all these approaches: Poverty-focused development activity should be:

· People-centred: sustainable poverty elimination will be achieved only if external support focuses on what matters to people, understands the differences between groups of people and works with them in a way that is congruent with their current livelihood strategies, social environment and ability to adapt.

· Responsive and participatory: poor people themselves must be key actors in identifying and addressing livelihood priorities. Outsiders need processes that enable them to listen and respond to the poor.

· Multi-level: poverty elimination is an enormous challenge that will only be overcome by working at multiple levels, ensuring that micro level activity informs the development of policy and an effective enabling environment, and that macro level structures and processes support people to build upon their own strengths.

· Conducted in partnership: with both the public and the private sector.

· Sustainable: there are four key dimensions to sustainability - economic, institutional, social and environmental sustainability. All are important - a balance must be found between them.

· Dynamic: external support must recognise the dynamic nature of livelihood strategies, respond flexibly to changes in people's situation, and develop longer-term commitments. It should also be informed by an underlying commitment to poverty elimination which is the thread running through all DFID's work.

DFID stresses the importance to livelihoods of capital assets and distinguishes five categories of such assets: natural, social, physical, human and financial. It also stresses the need to maintain an 'outcome focus', thinking about how development activity impacts upon people's livelihoods, not only about immediate project outputs.

Types of activity

DFID is operationalising livelihoods approaches in many different contexts. Broadly speaking it aims to promote sustainable livelihoods through:

· direct support to assets (providing poor people with better access to the assets that act as a foundation for their livelihoods); and

· support to the more effective functioning of the structures and processes (policies, public and private sector organisations, markets, social relations, etc.) that influence not only access to assets

· but also: which livelihood strategies are open to poor people.

The idea that link these two ideas is one of empowerment. Generally speaking, if people have better access to assets they will have more ability to influence structures and processes so that these become more responsive to their needs. At a higher organisational level DFID has identified three types of activity that can contribute to poverty elimination:

· Enabling actions are those which support the policies and context for poverty reduction and elimination.

· Inclusive actions are broad-based and improve opportunities and services generally. They also address issues of equity and barriers to participation of poor people.

· Focused actions are targeted directly at the needs of poor people.
SL approaches can contribute in all these areas. Work at the level of 'transforming structures and processes' clearly links to enabling actions. Support to the accumulation of different types of assets might be either inclusive (e.g. education programmes) or focused (e.g. supporting micro finance organisations for poor women).

DFID sustainable livelihood framework The arrows within the framework are used as shorthand to denote a variety of different types of relationships, all of which are highly dynamic. None of the arrows imply direct causality, though all imply a certain level of influence.

Since its emergence in 1998, the DFID framework has been used for planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluation of a number of development projects, but few research projects have so far been using it. Eyhorn et.al find substantial shortcomings in the theoretical base and the practical application of the livelihood framework developed by DFID: "Firstly, it does not encourage a holistic understanding of the complexity and diversity of livelihood from an actor's perspective, hereafter referred to as the 'inner realities' of a livelihood system. Secondly it does not shed much light on the process of decision making leading to specific livelihood strategies. Therefore, for the PhD project, we will develop an adopted livelihood framework which shall overcome these shortcomings. This adopted framework has emerged in a livelihood course organized by NADEL in April 2003. (Frank Eyhorn: "The Impact of Organic Cotton Cultivation on the Livelihood of Indian Smallholder's" PhD proposal NADEL / CDE / FiBL)

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