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The future of indigenous peoples: how to overcome social exclusion through sustainable livelihoods?
At the intersection of current development and environmental research, the concept of "sustainable livelihoods" has emerged, providing a new way of thinking about work, production and distribution. In particular, the concept aims to build a sustainable future that eliminates family inequality, targeting work issues for vulnerable groups (e.g. low-income groups living at the bottom of poverty, indigenous peoples, etc.). Sustainable livelihoods not only focus on the specific manifestations of poverty, but also on vulnerability and social exclusion at a deeper level.
Sustainable livelihoods emphasize that individuals are able to provide for themselves in a viable, long-term manner.
In this context, “sustainability” also means being able to withstand external shocks or pressures and recover after trauma, maintaining or improving one’s livelihood. The sustainable livelihoods framework provides a structure for comprehensive poverty alleviation actions, focusing on addressing the problems of vulnerable communities by creating development opportunities that are people-centred, participatory and dynamic. This is the bridge connecting the environment and humans for harmonious coexistence.
Take the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed by the United Nations as an example. These goals aim to promote the concept of sustainable livelihoods, ensure that "no one is left behind", and achieve a sustainable world. However, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, all 17 goals have faced significant delays and must be approached collaboratively in a way that goes beyond a single goal.
Historical BackgroundThe term “sustainable livelihoods” was first proposed in a rural context and was later supplemented and expanded by the Brundtland Commission. Authors such as Gibson-Graham, Cameron, and Healy emphasize the measurement of individual well-being and how that well-being affects their ability to survive.
Brundtland Commission
The concept of sustainable livelihoods was first proposed by the Brundtland Commission and further expanded at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, which called for the achievement of sustainable livelihoods as a broad goal for poverty eradication. In 1992, Robert Chambers and Gordon Conway proposed the following comprehensive definition of sustainable rural livelihoods:
Livelihoods include the capabilities, assets (stocks, resources, claims and access) and activities needed to sustain life; sustainable livelihoods are those that are able to cope with and recover from stresses and shocks, maintain or enhance their capabilities and assets, and provide for the next Providing sustainable livelihood opportunities for all generations.
Concept Development
The sustainable livelihoods approach draws from theoretical discussions of sustainable development and combines collective concern for the environment and economic resources with individual concerns.
Individual well-being
In their analysis of different 24-hour clocks, Gibson-Graham et al. combined five categories of well-being: material, occupational, social, community, and physical. Comprehensive interventions are challenging to measure, and quantitative data on quantitative phenomena, such as well-being, are equally difficult to record.
Model of a sustainable livelihoods approach
Several organizations have integrated the concept of sustainable livelihoods into their ongoing poverty reduction efforts; models of how organizations have adapted their sustainable livelihoods approaches are listed below.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
The Sustainable Development Goals are targets for creating a sustainable world that address a variety of issues, including poverty. The action was adopted by the United Nations in 2015. It covers 17 major goals and comprehensively addresses national, community and individual levels. The United Nations publishes a progress report on each SDG every year.
Smart Community Development Framework (SCDF)
SCDF aims to identify the problems faced by vulnerable communities in order to come up with solutions to build sustainable livelihoods. Its main purpose is to identify the needs of each community and to eliminate the vulnerabilities of that community, especially poverty, based on socially specific solutions. The framework focuses on empowering communities to make decisions and actively participate in problem solving.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
UNDP uses a sustainable livelihoods approach to assess different types of capital and identifies five types of foundations: human, social, natural, physical and financial. The extent to which individuals have access to these assets will determine the programmes that UNDP designs to assist development.
CARE
CARE focuses on emergency relief management and long-term development projects. In 1994, CARE developed the Household Livelihood Security Framework to better monitor and evaluate its work. CARE's sustainable livelihoods framework shifts towards holistic development techniques rather than single-sector responses.
UK Department for International Development (DFID)
DFID provides foreign aid dedicated to eradicating extreme poverty. It uses the sustainable livelihoods framework, focuses on activities that improve individual livelihoods, and incorporates measures that are people-oriented, holistic, sustainable and dynamic.
In the current social context, how to ensure the empowerment and autonomy of indigenous peoples and promote sustainable livelihood models to eliminate social exclusion is a question worthy of our in-depth consideration?
