Rebuilding livelihoods beyond housing
Involvement in building activities can be important
in the first few years after a disaster, but the
amount of work available will tail off after that.
In the longer term, in moving from reconstruction
to development, other sources of livelihood will
be needed. This can mean strengthening existing
livelihoods, or exploring new opportunities.
Enabling people to have secure livelihoods can
contribute to significantly reducing vulnerability
and disaster risk.
Secure livelihoods are linked to reduced
vulnerability through:
• Increased incomes
• Increased savings and access to credit
• Increased skills and capacities enabling
people to take up new opportunities as market
conditions change
If, as a result, people are wealthier, they are:
• Able to afford to repair, maintain and improve
their home
• Able to demand better quality, higher value
products and services
• Likely to be more interested in the mitigation of
future risks (so avoid losing what they have now
gained)
There has been an evolution in approaches to
rebuilding livelihoods over time as agencies have
moved from livelihoods handouts to different kinds
of cash payments. In each approach, there are a
number of important considerations to ensure that
the aid is used effectively.
Livelihoods handouts
In the last decades of the C20th, when natural
disasters hit rural populations (as most did, due
to the more rural nature of populations at the
time), aid agencies often gave survivors assets to
help restore their ability to provide for their own
food supply. So farmers were supplied with tools
and seeds or livestock; and on the coast, people
engaged in fishing were given boats and nets.
The lessons that can be learned from some of the
unsuccessful attempts to rebuild livelihoods in this
way include:
• Making sure that the aid proposed is
appropriate. For instance, the seeds distributed
need to match the crops grown in the area.
Likewise, fishing nets or boats need to reflect
the fishing techniques and types of fish found in
the area.
• Targetting the right people for assistance:
identifying people who are directly interested
and would most benefit from the aid
• Differentiating between those who have
experienced few losses, and those with more
serious losses.
• Never overlooking local power relations as this
can result in manipulation of aid resources
by the most powerful, who could use the
opportunity to ‘muscle in’ on particular
livelihood activities and markets. This
elite capture of aid resources can result in
strengthening of the most powerful people, and
further marginalising the vulnerable.
• Addressing gender relations in terms of the
ownership of the assets, and also understanding
the importance of the home for women as a
base not only for household activities, but for
running a business or undertaking paid work.
• Giving attention to seasonality. Adults in farming
families often get other jobs during quiet
periods of the farming year. Landless labourers,
in particular, rely not only on agricultural work
during the planting and harvesting seasons, but
on other paid work in the rest of the year.
• Avoiding showcase projects that only benefit
a few people but are not relevant to the
vast majority of the population and are not
replicable.
• Ensuring good follow-up. Assets (tools, seeds
etc.) need to be provided in a timely manner
and not when the aid agency is pulling out.
Cash payments
In more recent years, there has been a shift to
cash payments for livelihood recovery. This helps
to address some of the issues identified above,
as people can use the money in differing and
flexible ways according to their needs; and the cash
injection helps to stimulate local businesses and
markets. The increasingly urbanised nature of the
developing world and therefore of the communities
affected by disasters, makes cash payments by
far the most appropriate way to support people to
recover their livelihoods because urban livelihoods
are so diverse. Providing tools, equipment and
materials can be useful, but only if it is based on
a thorough needs assessment. It is rarely enough
by itself, and needs to be supplemented by a cash
grant, and later on, access to loans and other
measures.
As soon as the cash economy appears ready to
pick up, instead of handing out food, clothing and
other items, people need to start to be supported
by cash transfers, initially so they can buy these
items for themselves, and later on to assist them to
rebuild livelihoods. Cash transfers can be paid in
a number of instalments over the recovery period.
Some examples of cash payments for livelihood
recovery include:
• Grants of about US$500, paid in 4 monthly
instalments, to 140,000 families in Sri Lanka
affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
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