According to the 1998 Human Development Report, more than one billion people are unable to meet their basic food, shelter and clothing needs. Their deprivation is more complicated than lack of money: it also includes powerlessness and vulnerability to unforeseen shocks and stresses. In the past, the majority of these people were subsistence farmers, but the World Bank estimates that currently most of them live in cities.

Poor people have developed complex livelihood systems to reduce their risk. The skills and abilities of the entire family are pooled; everyone does what he or she can to survive. The situation is especially acute in low-income countries where there is no social safety net. Here, people often work in the informal sector, the category of work that goes uncounted by government statisticians. Sources of support vary: many people rely on part-time and short-term jobs and other income-generating activities such as scavenging, home gardening, hawking and selling craftwork to achieve a basic existence. Prospects for the future do not look promising. An analysis by the International Labour Organization shows that 675 million new jobs are required in the next decade if full employment is to be achieved, with most of them in developing countries with young populations. That is more than the entire labour force of industrialized countries in 1990.

Livelihoods and jobs depend on labour-intensive growth and investment to increase income security. But well-being also depends on access to health services and education, personal security and freedom to make choices. The challenge for development planners is to increase well-being for poor people without putting further stress on ecosystems. One proposed solution is the development of sustainable livelihood systems, based on the knowledge and experiences of poor people themselves. Here, success depends on the development of new methodologies such as appreciative inquiry, which can empower poor people by building on their current achievements, coupled with new methods of including poor people in the decision-making process, such as participatory media.

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In Depth
	Ekins, Paul and Manfred Max-Neef, eds. Real-life economics: Understanding wealth creation. London, UK: Routledge, 1992. 460 p. SID PIED Workshops on Civil Society and Sustainable Livelihoods held in Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and North America. Towards sustainable livelihoods. Rome: Society for International Development, 1996. 168 p.
Virtual Ideas
	IISDnet-Communities and Livelihoods Web pages

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