Showing posts with label Livelihoods. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Livelihoods. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Alternate Livelihoods for Refugees

Today is World Refugee Day: There are now more displaced people on the planet than at any other time in human history. UN Security Council has failed to prevent war through negotiation, diplomacy, and sanctions. By the end of 2015, 65.3 million individuals had been driven from their homes as a result of persecution, conflict, generalized violence or human rights violations. Of these, 21.3 million were refugees, 40.8 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 3.2 million asylum-seekers (UNHCR, 2015a).

The civil wars always have unfolded refugee crisis in every part of the world. The refugee choose to transit to safe locations and may become “stuck” in a country that was intended to be a pit stop on a longer journey. But why don’t refugees just stay in these countries such as India, Turkey or Greece? Human Rights as well as Living conditions of destination where migrants had most wanted to reach significantly affect their migration intention. The reasons for this are clear: poor living conditions, lack of employment opportunities and the desire to fulfill their initial plans. Even once they are migrated to destination, they apply as asylum-seekers, and keeps them waiting, sometimes for years, for refugee status.

This is the time for investing in skill development for livelihoods. . Getting newcomers quickly into the labour market is “the only way” to integrate them. The assistance must including livelihood support be given through cash grants, medical assistance, vocational trainings and Non Food Items (NFIs).

1. Language Barrier: The first task is overcoming language barriers through using services of social connections like diaspora. A key to pursuing sustainable livelihoods is social capital to overcome language barrier and adaptation to the new place. Innovative use of technologies for data gathering with social networks should be piloted to overview the required support for target population.

2. Grants and Micro Credit: Cash and in-kind safety-net transfers under humanitarian programs are an important coping resource for the displaced. There must be setup of micro credit services to provide loans to refugees. Otherwise the majority of the refugee falls into trap of lenders who are connected to organized crime. Initial grant must be a hybrid of vulnerability fund as well as start-up capital to invest in skills or business. Integration with mobile platforms and with mobile money expands the client base and makes the services easier to use. Credit activity can also be self-sustaining in financial terms, something that is particularly useful as donor funding is in decline. Aligning with on-line crowd-funding also expands the base of donors.

3. Skill Development: The third setup is to assess their education and skills systematically. There is necessity in the recognition of foreigners’ qualifications especially in face of Europe’s excessive demands for credentials. Once the assessment of entrepreneurial and employ ability of the candidate over, a careful planning to ensure that vocational training is imparted and marketing support is provided. In this way livelihoods are secured. This becomes more important as most displaced persons have background of farming and pastoral livelihood practises; The refugees who upgrade their current skills and learn on their own will find it easy, whereas the traditional learner who doesn't add to his skills will face challenges. Workforce skills acquires special significance viewed from the perspectives of both Lifelong Learning (LLL) and the Knowledge Economy (KE).

Challenges: Humanitarian agencies and host governments have predominately used the camp and settlement systems as opposed to supporting the settlement of refugees in urban areas. Social and economic conditions in refugee economies are distinct from those in more settled and integrated economies. This is particularly true where refugees live in camps designated by gender, ethnicity, or language, and are separated from mainstream urban activity.The whole proposition of livelihoods become infeasible in remote camp-based areas with depressed economic conditions such as East Sudan, requires market responsiveness and carefulness.

Unfortunately, the refugee crisis is not temporary. Most refugees do not expect to be displaced for long, but in reality displacement lasts about 17 years on average. As a result, there is a need to address longer-term development needs to complement short-term humanitarian assistance. Hence, there is need to learn on the Refugee Livelihoods. Reference: UNHCR evidence document and Guide to market-based livelihood interventions for refugees.

Friday, December 11, 2015

Livelihoods Asia Summit 2015

Livelihoods Asia Summit 2015 was being held on December 10 and 11 at New Delhi, India. The Summit sessions were around topics like skill development, impacts of climate change on livelihoods, inclusive value chains, policy innovations, and private sector partnerships among the approaches that offer a pathway out of poverty. The summit has more than hundred delegates working as sector specialists, practitioner and advocates in the livelihood sector. Panel sessions and other live events are great — especially the Q&A ranges from absurd to tricky.


There was focus on policies, programs, private players and potential in poor during the sessions. There was emphasis by panelist to think of poverty as a dynamic and multidimensional phenomenon. There are so many policy level talks on SHG and FPO but the dialogues on next generation of institution was lacking in the summit. The summit also ignored rights-based approaches to livelihood development while there is a strong body of literature exists showing the correlation between empowerment and economic productivity.

There are two school of thoughts emerging in usage of poverty alleviation fund. One views the establishment of the community institution through participation of the civil society organizations while other pitches for direct benefit transfers to the beneficiaries. Government official from Rural development ministry pointed success of universal primary education and connectivity to rural areas through PMGSY. The welcome part was an eye opening session on the impact of climate change on livelihood of ultra poor. Experts suggested that the people need risk transfers and insurance protection for livelihood recovery post disaster.

I enjoyed much of the time in the summit.  As much I got out of the conference, I know there is still more to learn and more to share. Yet, I have always wondered about these summits where every leader talks about what needs to be done! But they are the ones who should be doing it ! The underline of the summit - No one organization can eradicate hunger and reduce poverty alone, only in partnerships with a broad range of stakeholders can all of us achieve the goals.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Livelihoods

What is Livelihood ? Nobody understands this word outside the cocoon of the development sector. The problem with the word livelihoods is that it has overtones of subsistence. It hints that poor people should only have enough just to live – not to prosper. As Kate Magro says : “Why is it that Westerners have careers, jobs, employment opportunities and everyone else has a livelihood?”

Livelihood is a convergence of multiple disciplines of profession leading to the cash flow in the household. Mostly the poor are engaged in a “diversified portfolio of subsistence activities” (DPSA) for earning their livelihoods. Hence, Understanding smallholders' financial needs will be the key step to understand livelihood scenario. A new survey of 1,800 banks conducted by the Initiative for Smallholder Finance reveals that the total amount of debt financing supplied by local banks to smallholder farmers in the developing world is approximately $9 billion.

The first step towards designing livelihood plan for the beneficiary will be to seek information on all of the income sources, various consumption and investments, interplay among cash flows, barter arrangements, credit sources and the financial tools in use throughout the year. Migration is a major livelihood strategy for the rural poor that must be included in the project design. That will give us ideas to better understand their needs, preferences, aspirations and behaviors. This information set must be shared with Donors, Government, Financial Institution and NGOs. The future programs designed to strengthen and develop rural livelihoods must grasp the whole range of vulnerabilities and risks faced by  an entrepreneur or farmer/ artisan.

To understand what NGOs are doing, it is important to understand what they are not doing. There have been various attempts to improve income of farmers & artisans in order to making the value chains more inclusive. While addressing the critical gaps in the respective value chains, the donors put more emphasis on the capacity building than market linkages.  The utter disdain for market forces by such initiatives and short planning without critically looking sustainability factor has led to massive failure till now. Sustainability parameter evaluates the likelihood of continuation of interventions initiated due the project by the community, scaling of pilot activities, leadership development in the community, institutional and financial arrangement in post project scenario. Hence, a livelihood intervention requires a critical first step in the process : Development of a livelihood project, as proof of concept and live workable model on the ground.

Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector has huge potential for growth in the semi urban and rural India. Throughout they also account for a disproportionately large share of new jobs in OECD countries. The rural entrepreneurs operating and managing the solar lighting enterprises at village level constitute the backbone of TERI’s Lighting a Billion Lives Campaign. There are successful cases  make us arrive at a conclusion that with a very little financial help and skill training, the villagers are able to be enterprising. The rural entrepreneur has been enrolled into skill development programs promoted by the government for livelihood enhancement. Now, there must be urgent focus on provision of soft loans and vulnerability reduction funds with  financial tools designed as per the cash flow of the occupation.

Any livelihood programs must build up the physical, financial and social assets of the rural poor using local resources. Empowering communities to take control of economic development is slow, patient work and even end as failure —and people funding or supporting development work need to take into account when designing livelihood programmes.