Livelihoods
A livelihood is the means by which a person or household makes a living over a period of time. Livelihood security approaches have evolved from considering the root causes of food insecurity.
Concern to contribute to improve long term, sustainable access to food/income
Taking a livelihoods approach means that we broaden our analysis of the resources available to communities from tangible physical and financial resources - these include social, political, human and natural.
In addition, the approach emphasises the role the external environment can have on the livelihoods of the poor, especially in terms of conflict, natural disasters, economic shocks and environmental degradation.
Policy aim
Concern will contribute to the improvement of poor peoples' long term, sustainable access to food and income through a number of strategies. These include building upon the existing resources of communities, advocating strategies that support communities to engage with constraints in the external environment, developing the capacity of Concern and its partners to implement the livelihood security approach, and to recommend and support social protection strategies.
Capacity building case studies
Capacity building is defined as an approach to programming that emphasises enabling and strengthening individuals, groups, organisations, networks and institutions to increase their ability to cope with crises and to contribute long-term to the elimination of poverty.
The case studies in this section reflect the state of Concern programmes at the end of the 1990s and the start of the new century. Since these case studies have been compiled and by mid-2004, Concern has continued to change rapidly and take on more strategic vision in its programme work.
Currently, Concern is moving quickly to becoming an organisation that is working in a partnership approach and is engaging with human rights as a normative basis for our work.
Our capacity building work is also beginning at last to move away from being purely ‘service delivery' in nature and is also now looking at supporting local institutions to supply capacity building services wherever possible.
Change management is usually a slow and painful process and it takes time to change attitudes and behaviour internally, not to mention in our relationships with people we have worked with for years. This is an ongoing process of change.
These Case Studies were begun in the summer of 2001 but remained unfinished. As time went by, reviews and evaluations of the programmes took place at different times and the case studies required updating.
It is acknowledged that some of these Case Studies have now become ‘older practice' in the light of new developments and strategies. An example of this is in nutrition where Concern, in partnership with Valid International, has become a leader in the new Community Therapeutic Care (CTC) initiatives, which are an exciting step on from the traditional nutritional responses.
Another example is Concern's newly developing strategy in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) which moves interventions on from those basic but very effective ones outlined in the Bangladesh Development Strategies for Disaster Prevention case study.
