Presented by Peter Thorne at the Training of Trainers workshop on the use of Livelihoods Characterization/Benchmarking Tool (SLATE), Jeldu, Ethiopia, 1-5 April 2013

1. An Introduction to the Sustainable
Livelihoods Framework
Peter Thorne
Training of Trainers (ToT) on the use of Livelihoods
Characterization/Benchmarking Tool (SLATE)
Jeldu, Ethiopia, 1-5 April 2013

2. Why Sustainable Livelihoods?
 A way of thinking about scope, priorities and
objectives for development.
 Identify the range of assets and options open to
households.
 By doing so, the constraints faced by and
opportunities available to them can be clarified.
 Multi-dimensional.
 Based in householders’ realities

3. The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework

4. What are the Capital Asset Classes?
 Human – skills, knowledge, ability to labour and good health that together
enable people to pursue different livelihood strategies and achieve their
livelihood objectives. At a household level human capital is broadly a
factor of the amount and quality of labour available.
 Natural – natural resource stocks from which resource flows and services
(e.g. nutrient cycling, erosion protection) useful for livelihoods are derived
 Financial – financial resources that people use to achieve their livelihood
objectives (includes capital and income for the purposes of the livelihoods
analysis)
 Physical – basic infrastructure and producer goods needed to support
livelihoods (roads, shelter, milk collection plants etc.).
 Social – the social resources upon which people draw in pursuit of their
livelihood objectives. Includes family, other social, commercial networks
etc., membership of formal organisations (cooperatives etc.)

5. Livelihoods Pentagons
Small-scale commercial poultry Resource poor subsistence

6. The Process 1: Identifying Asset
Indicators
 Identify a set of indicators for the communities that
we are working in.
 Important that these reflect the needs, concerns and
opportunities that affect the community
 Groups of key informants

7. The Process 2: Household scoring
 Combine indicators identified during step 1.
 Assess each household according to these indicators
 Weight (importance): 0 to 10 – how relevant is
this indicator to the household when compared with
all the other indicators.
 Score (impact): -5 to +5 – how much does this
indicator contribute to or compromise the
household’s livelihood.
 Vulnerability – Score future perceptions

8. What will we get from this?
Learn about the different livelihoods assets and
indicators within a community and their relative
importance.
Identify benchmarks that can be used to see where
individual households are in relation to their
neighbours
Identify groups (types) of household that are
sufficiently similar in nature for them to be able to
adopt similar sets of interventions.

9. Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation
africa-rising.net