Livelihoods
Concern Worldwide has been supporting the livelihoods of the poorest people in developing countries for over 30 years. Put simply, “livelihoods” means a person’s ability to earn a living. But it is about so much more than just income, it is about everything that makes an impact on a person’s life – education, health and access to food all play a vital role. We see our livelihoods work as a fundamental part of what we do.
Concern spends about a third of its overseas budget on livelihood programmes. In 2009, Concern operated livelihoods programmes in 27 countries, directly benefiting 4.2 million people and indirectly benefiting 21.9 million people.
Empowering lives
As part of our livelihoods work, we take a broad look at all the resources available to communities. Concern empowers people to overcome poverty by helping them to produce more food, get access to a reliable food supply, reduce their vulnerability to droughts, improve their access to water and generate more income to spend on their children’s education and health care.
Reaching out
As with all our work, our livelihoods programmes target the poorest people in the poorest countries of the world. Within specific countries, we focus on the poorest regions where the needs are greatest. Given that up to 70% of those living in absolute poverty are female, empowering women is a key priority within our livelihoods programmes.
Concern’s livelihoods programmes aim to reduce—and ultimately eliminate—absolute poverty, giving people a better standard of living. How we do this depends on the context in which we are working.
Development work
Within development contexts, our work concentrates on ensuring that communities have better access to food. This means providing the tools, seeds, knowledge, and training to enable people to become more self-sufficient through more productive agriculture, vegetable gardens, and livestock rearing. We also aim to improve people’s means of income by providing access to savings and credit programmes, small business loans, and helping people gain skills to run small businesses.
Emergencies
In emergency contexts, our livelihoods security programmes focus on rebuilding communities, their resources and infrastructure, and distributing food and shelter to meet basic survival needs. We also protect and restore people’s means of earning an income.
Watch our video on conservation farming and see how we improve livelihoods:
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