Analysing Policy for Sustainable Livelihoods

While the sustainable livelihoods (SL) framework has proved a valuable way of structuring micro-level studies of livelihoods, it gives little guidance on how to link those findings with macro-level issues or with policy analysis. Bottom-up livelihoods analysis is often seen as too context-specific to guide policy making and top-down analysis misses the complexity. To bridge this gap, three elements are needed: [1] a model of interactions between policy and livelihoods, [2] a clearer understanding of the role of social and political capital, [3] an approach to policy analysis that draws on and feeds into SL analysis.

Shankland's suggestions about how to improve policy analysis are particularly useful. He emphasises the need to distinguish between institutions ('rules of the game') and organisations ('players') and analyse their relative strength as well as links with the public in respective countries. Implementation is part of the policy process, he argues. Policies are broad statements of intent, while policy 'measures' take specific forms, e.g. laws, projects. Policy making works quite differently in different sectors (e.g. scientific arguments are important in some, lobbying by professional groups are vital in others). Furthermore, local conditions and power relations often limit or distort the channeling of policy. The key characteristics of a policy measure are: design, commitment, resources, links (between 'champions' of the measure), and time. He also offers a checklist for analysing policy for sustainable livelihoods, with a detailed explanation of the questions, and suggested methodologies in an annex.