Livelihoods

Currently, over 2.8 billion people live on less than two dollars a day. Of that number, 1.2 billion survive on less than one dollar a day. In many areas of the world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the number of people living in absolute poverty is rising. Concern’s livelihoods programs aim to reduce—and ultimately eliminate—absolute poverty, giving people a better standard of living.  

Concern empowers people to overcome poverty by helping them to produce more food, get

Concern has been supporting the livelihoods of the poor in developing countries for over 30 years. Concern defines livelihood security very simply as ensuring that people have the means to make a decent living. How we do this depends on the context in which we are working. 

HOW WE WORK
Within development contexts, Concern’s livelihoods security work concentrates on:

• Ensuring that communities have better access to food, as well as the tools, seeds, knowledge, and training to become more self-sufficient and produce more food through more productive agriculture, vegetable gardens and livestock rearing.
• Improving people’s means of income generation, including providing access to savings and credit programs, small business loans and markets, increasing farmers’ access to and from local markets and helping landless people and the urban poor gain skills to run small businesses to make a living.

In emergency contexts, our livelihoods security programs focus on:

• Protecting and restoring people’s means of earning income through emergency preparedness (such as early warning systems) and mitigation training.
• Distributing food, shelter and household items to meet people’s basic survival needs.
• Building community resources and infrastructure, such as roads and schools through food-for-work and cash-for-work programs.  

Recognizing that poor populations are the most vulnerable to future disasters, Concern—through its approach to disaster risk reduction—works with these communities to:

• Better prepare them to deal with disasters by thinking about the dangers and how they might lessen the problems if these dangers come to pass.
• Reduce the impact of future crises on their livelihoods.
• Help them to grow a variety of crops and keep domestic animals to reduce their risk, so that if one fails, they can rely on something else.  

As with all Concern’s work, our livelihoods programs target the poorest people in the poorest countries of the world. Within specific countries, we focus on the poorest regions where the needs are greatest. With the knowledge that up to 70 percent of those living in absolute poverty are female, empowering women is a key priority within our livelihoods programs.   

MEETING THE CHALLENGE
Concern spends about a third of its overseas budget on livelihood programs. In 2009, Concern operated livelihoods programs in 27 countries, directly benefiting 4.2 million people and indirectly benefiting 21.9 million people through the following interventions:

• Providing food, shelter and household items for populations affected by emergencies
• Restocking animals, providing fishing nets and replacing tools and seeds
• Rebuilding roads and schools through food-for-work or cash-for-work projects
• Promoting forest protection and regeneration to reduce soil erosion, addressing illegal logging and promoting conservation at the national level
• Promoting a “pro-poor” land policy at the national level and helping farmers secure land titles locally
• Teaching crop diversification, productivity, better watering techniques and soil protection
• Providing the poorest people with access to microfinance initiatives, including access to capital, small loans and vocational training
• Developing infrastructure that benefits the entire community by improving access to markets and services

LINKS
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
United Nations Development Program (UNDP)
United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UN/ISDR)
UN Millennium Development Goals