SRD 504: Livelihoods and Resources

Block 1: Livelihoods
UNIT 3: ASSESSMENT OF LIVELIHOODS REALITY
Structure
1.  Introduction 
2.  Objectives 
3.  Livelihoods Assessment – Purposes, Considerations, and Principles 
4.  LEAP Tools: Tools for Assessing Livelihoods Situation 
5.  Summary 

1. Introduction

So far, we understood the meaning of livelihoods, the principles involved in livelihoods

approach and the framework that presents the factors influencing livelihoods. Now is the time
to understand the methods involved in assessing existing livelihoods situation in a
community. This understanding would be the basis for designing livelihoods interventions.
The tools for livelihoods assessment presented in this unit draw heavily from the concepts of
participation and participatory research methods. You would benefit by revising these
concepts before practising the tools.

2. Objectives

After going through the unit, you will be able to:

• Argue for inclusion of both household and macro-level aspects in a livelihoods
assessment.
• List tools that can be used to assess livelihoods at the community level.
• Attempt livelihoods assessment of a community/village.

3. Livelihoods Assessment – Purposes, Considerations, and Principles

Assessment of the current situation with respect to livelihoods is the first step in any
livelihoods intervention planning. The intervention plans can either be at the micro-level,
where the community prepares its livelihoods enhancement action plans, or at the macro-
level where an intervening agency, in consultation with community, develops a plan/project/
program. In addition, the assessment can also be taken up:
(a) To obtain the livelihoods context of a community before undertaking specific research
related to household reactions to various variables and their livelihoods strategy.
(b) To come up with a broader understanding of the situation in order to help the
Governments develop a policy or to help the INGOs develop an intervention strategy.
 Assessment of Livelihoods Reality

Thus, the livelihoods assessment can

support diverse purposes, which
include design of intervention (at
community or area level), program,
proposal, policy, or strategy.
The household and the capitals it
uses to get the livelihoods outcomes
exist in a context. Hence, the
livelihoods assessment should cover
both household level (micro)
interactions and the context level
(macro) factors impacting the livelihoods scenario. Livelihoods are an intimate reality of the
people. The portfolio of livelihoods (and the four livelihoods outcomes in which the portfolio
results in) depends on the perception of the household of their risks, capacity to withstand
risks, and the availabilities of opportunities and capitals. Being a perception, this is highly
personal and each household has a different reality with respect to the 14 elements of
livelihoods framework. Since assessing each household would be very difficult, we assess the
generalities related to these 14 elements at the community level and apply this understanding
to the households. We study a few sample households to confirm our analysis. As livelihoods
also depend on the broader trends sweeping across the community or nation, a macro-analysis
is equally critical.
The following examples could clarify the micro and macro perspectives:
• The outcomes of the loan taken by a labourer differ by the source of loans - from the
landlord in the village or the traditional money lender. The labourer could get the loan at
a lesser interest rate from the landlord. But he is expected to do some small odd jobs at
the landlord’s house/farm freely. In some cases, such labourer will have to give
preference to work on the land of the landlord, even over working on his own land.
Though the labourer would receive wages for such work, he would lose heavily in the
wake of emergency harvesting. These relationships and their impact cannot be captured in
macro-level studies. Further, the impact of such relationships would depend on the
number of labourers also having their agriculture (own or leasehold) and number of
labourers depending on the local landlords for credit.
• The larger supply and demand situation of paddy and restrictions imposed by the
government on the sale price at rice mills definitely has an impact on the availability of
rice for the consumers and the price that the farmers receive. However, these will not be
readily apparent in the micro-level analysis involving only the community.
Based on the purpose, understanding both micro and macro elements may not be required to
the same extent in all cases. In developing a plan for livelihoods intervention, we may have to
focus more on the household and the community situation. On the other hand, when we are
doing a scoping study for an entire region, we may have to focus more on the macro-level
changes. Thus, the composition of this combination may vary depending on the purpose at

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 Assessment of Livelihoods Reality

hand. Further, the assessment should also be tailored to the situation prevalent during
assessment.
3. 1. Principles

To serve its purpose, the assessment should be structured and based on certain principles. As
pointed out in the earlier units, livelihoods of the poor are risky and comprise of a multi-
dimensional reality. The discipline coming out of adhering to the following principles
reduces the (sectoral) biases of the persons engaged in the assessment:
• The assessment should always try to combine the knowledge of the community members,
intervening agencies, and outsiders; and ploughing it back to the community and/or its
leaders so that the community owns this combined knowledge. The exercise should,
therefore, involve the community and its leaders in reflecting on their situation and the
results of assessment.
• The assessment should identify gaps and opportunities in the existing situation towards
the formation of livelihoods enhancement action plans/interventions. The facilitator
should guide the community to dig deeper into the existing situation and come up with
the gaps and opportunities that need to be filled/tapped.
• All known and knowable parameters of the 14 elements should be assessed. Ignoring any
of the elements will lead to a partial understanding. Intervention plans based on such
partial understanding could increase the risk of the livelihoods of the poor.
• As any livelihoods situation is bound to be dynamic, the assessment needs to be flexible
enough to be able to take care of this dynamic nature, and to go layer after layer.
• The focus of assessment should be on broader trends & proportions rather than on
exactness. Exactness may vary from week to week, month to month and between
families. Hence, focussing on exactness can lead to loss of time, sometimes without
reaching there, and blurring the broader picture.
• There are several livelihoods in a village/area, and these livelihoods interact among
themselves in a unique manner, and any assessment is incomplete without capturing this
interaction. Similarly, even households have multiple livelihoods and these need to be
understood. Unless, these interactions are understood, there is a possibility that the
intervention disturbs the supportive livelihoods.
• While the capitals are mostly present within the village/area, some contextual factors may
be present outside the village/area and may prevent or facilitate access to certain capitals.
This needs to be appreciated.
• The markets with which the villagers/residents in the area interact should be chosen for
study – not the markets that are nearby.
• An understanding of the chains of actors existing outside the village and engaged in 3-4
major livelihoods present in the village is required to assess the manner in which the
village interacts with the outside world.
• While feasibility frontier (opportunities) can be determined keeping in mind the technical
advances and/or best practices, the constraints and threats must be assessed from the
perspective of the people. The wishes and tendencies of the community must also be
factored in.
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 Assessment of Livelihoods Reality

• The assessment should reflect the reality as it exists. The facilitators should not impose
their morality onto the livelihoods.
• The facilitators should know (and be careful while facilitating):
o Recency effect (People may not state the income, expense or problems faced during
last year and this may not lead to good reflection.)
o Social acceptance (People may say only socially acceptable and politically correct
things in a public space. For example, people may not say that they pay bribes.)
• As a principle, livelihoods scenario of the entire community needs to be assessed and
should not be limited to only the livelihoods of the poorer communities. This is despite
the fact that the interventions might focus only on the livelihoods of the poor. In other
words, pro-poor bias can come only during the design and execution of the project and
not at the time of assessment. This is not to deny that while selecting the livelihoods for
study using value-chain analysis, a higher priority is given to those livelihoods in which
the poor are engaged in. Similarly, an attempt is made to ensure that poor households are
adequately represented in income and expenditure analysis.
• Assessment of livelihoods and formulation of livelihoods enhancement action plans
(LEAP) cannot be separated temporally. In other words, some plans emerge in the initial
steps of assessment and these plans get fine-tuned or added-on during the later processes
of assessment. This also means that the community need not wait for intervention till the
entire process of assessment is completed. This is particularly so in the case of
community-based livelihoods enhancement action plans.
Self-test questions
1) The focus of livelihoods assessment should be on exactness rather than on broader
trends. (True/ False)
2) Regarding what aspects the facilitator should be careful while doing the assessment?
3) Expand LEAP?

4. LEAP Tools: Tools for Assessing Livelihoods Situation

Livelihoods assessment should be based on information about the situation relating to all the
14 elements of livelihoods framework. We assess the generalities related to these 14 elements
at the community level and apply this understanding to the households. We study a few
sample households to confirm our analysis or get household level information. Further, the
same element of the livelihoods situation should also be assessed using different methods,
which complement each other. When used at community level, the assessment should lead
the community in coming up with a livelihoods enhancement action plans.
The LEAP tools, used consistently with the above principles, provide us with the required
understanding of the livelihoods situation at the community level. While there are many
LEAP tools, the following are the important and first tools:
• Social map
• Resource map
• Livelihoods mapping
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 Assessment of Livelihoods Reality

• Traded-in and Traded-out analysis

• Income and Expenditure analysis
• Value-chain analysis
• Local market opportunity analysis
Other tools include timeline, time-analysis, seasonality analysis, institutional assessment,
farming systems analysis, credit analysis etc.
The above tools are participatory. They should be used only after the facilitator becomes
familiar with the village/community. The facilitator can use tools like transect walks and
timeline to gain familiarity with the village. In addition to becoming familiar with the village
and getting a quick profile of the village, the information obtained using these two tools can
also be used to (a) understand the broader context in which the village is present; and (b) list
the major risks faced by the community and the ways in which it coped with the risks.
Further, the facilitator should use the format of any tool only as a guide in displaying the
information for further analysis. The format is not an end in itself and should facilitate
analysis. The facilitator needs to use the occasion provided by the tool to facilitate discussion
about various items shown in the tool and make a note of this discussion. It is this discussion
that becomes useful in understanding the output of the tool. The facilitator should stick to the
broader tradition/spirit of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and participation, including
valuing everyone’s opinion, triangulation, iterative processes, reporting findings from all
tools and understanding back to the larger community, and seeking their reflection.
4. 1. Social Map

In the social map, the villagers show each household and all other constructions present in the
village. It is generally drawn on the ground using colours/ rangoli and other material locally
available or on other big medium provided by the residents of the village. In addition to the
houses, the constructions shown on the map include community wells, buildings, places of
worship, and other service providers like bus stands, schools etc. The map also includes
household-wise details - caste, number of members in the house, occupation, assets in
possession, etc., indicated by accepted codes - coloured stones, small sticks, small diagrams,
etc. Further, this tool also contributes to building rapport with the villagers as this engages
several of them.
The following information depicted in or gathered through a social map is helpful in
assessing the livelihoods situation of the village:
• total population (women and men ratio, demographic details) and families
• social composition (caste groups) of a village,
• poor households and characteristics associated with poverty,
• ownership of assets,
• occupations of the households,
• educational level and skills in various households,
• housing pattern of various castes (types of houses),
• number of different livestock,
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 Assessment of Livelihoods Reality

• migrant population,
• number of vulnerable persons like single women, old age persons, persons with
disabilities, attached labour, etc.,
• access to various government schemes like PDS, pensions, housing, loans, well-being
status, etc.,
• membership in various informal and formal institutions,
• leadership in the village,
• families that faced hardships in the recent past and the reasons for the hardship etc.
In the process of recording the details of the households, the community is asked to mention
the characteristics associated with poverty and indicate the households that are considered
poor. Similarly, information about vulnerable households is obtained. The table below can be
used as a guide to record the information relating to vulnerability.
Analysis of vulnerable persons in the village (as obtained from social map)
Village: Block & District:
Date of exercise:
No. of families
Type of Vulnerability With vulnerable
persons Accessing entitlements
Widows
Single women
Physically handicapped
persons
Mentally challenged people
Suffering from various disease
HH without ration cards
Migrating households
Likewise, the information regarding various services/ infrastructure is obtained. The
following table can be used to guide the discussions and prepare the record. The service
providers present in the village can also be known while drawing the social map as the houses
would be referred to as house belonging to health volunteer or village watchman, etc., or
when the information relating to the livelihoods of the households are being recorded. The
format to record the information regarding infrastructure can be seen in the next page.
Social map captures membership of households in various institutions, formal and informal,
such as school committee, village health/sanitation committee, Gram Panchayat, SHGs and
their federations, watershed societies, caste-based organisations, Vana Samarakshyana
Samities, water users associations, etc.

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 Assessment of Livelihoods Reality

Infrastructure/Services analysis in the village (as obtained during social map)

Village: Block & District:
Date of exercise:
Remarks
Name Location Accessibility quality, timely service etc.
General
Roads
Electricity
Safe drinking water
PDS shop/centre

Education
Anganwadi centre
Centre for continuing education
Information/ public TV
Primary school
High school
College
Library/ reading room
Technical and other

Health
ANM services
PHC
Government hospital
Nursing homes
Private clinics
Veterinary services

Communication
Telephones
Bus stop
Railway Station

Agriculture
Agriculture cooperative society
Market yard
Agricultural extension service

Others
Dairy
Fire station
Police station
Post office
Bank

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 Asseessment of Liv
velihoods Realiity

Apart froom the abovve, the assessment proceess has to coollect inform
mation on aspects that arre
relevant to the localiity or proposed intervenntion. For exxample, deatths in the im
mmediate paast
year andd reason mayy be neededd in areas w where the ouutreach of hhealth servicces is poor or
o
where faarmer suiciddes are repo orted. Wherre the idea of supportting agricultture is beinng
explored, informationn about cropps grown by each househhold may be shown.
An illustrration of a soocial map caan be seen beelow:

In the caase of large villages,

v thee village is divided
d into convenient segments foor the purposse
of mappiing. In the caase of urbann areas or larrger areas, a tentative esstimate of thhe parameterrs,
along wiith the spreaad of the elements to be gathered d using sociial map, is arrived at byb
discussinng with key informants
i inncluding froom the poor and
a a perusaal of secondaary data.
4. 2. Reesource Map
p

Resourcee map showss all the natuural resourcees present in or around thhe communitty, along witth
the issues like qualityy, use and access
a to these resourcess. After a traansect walk and obtaininng
some fammiliarity withh the villagee and its resoources, the facilitator
f askks the comm
munity to maap
the resouurces preseent around the village and/or acccessed by the villagerrs. After thhe
communiity draws the t map sh howing all the resourcces that theey access, the t followinng
additionaal informatioon is superrimposed onn the map to get a beetter apprecciation of thhe
livelihoods of the community: ownershipp of land by b community, use of resource by b
communiity, land by type of soil, land by m major crop grown,
g etc. T
This map, along with thhe
related discussions,
d enables thhe communiity and the facilitator to know the t followinng
informatiion:
4
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 Assessment of Livelihoods Reality

• Extent of natural resources present, used, and issues related to access

• Distribution of resources by type (as in the case of land, by type of soil, source of
irrigation, crops grown, etc., and in the case of forests by type of produce available, etc.)
• Seasonality of resource use
• Changes in resource use over the years
• Distribution of ownership and access to the resources, along with resources owned by
common facilities like temple lands, and community resources like trees in the village
land, tanks, etc.; along with the changes in the relative proportion of resources owned by
different (caste/tribal) groups
• Relationship between ownership of land and its use (as in the case of specific
communities growing more of a specific crop, etc.)
• Investments made to improve and maintain resources and source of such investments
• Risks faced and what did they do at the time of risk? Do they foresee any risk in future
and how are they preparing to handle the risk?
Discussions may show that some resources are not being used. Reasons for their not being
used, along with a discussion on the past efforts to using such resources, need to be discussed
and recorded. The discussions during the exercise also bring out the rules related to accessing
the common property resources and the institutional arrangements in place to maintain the
common property resources. Further, the resource use/access may have seasonal variation
and changes over a period of time. These need to be discussed and captured.
4. 3. Livelihoods Mapping

Livelihoods mapping is a tool that lists all the existing livelihoods/vocations in the
community, and helps the community to select the major livelihoods/vocations (in which the
poor involve themselves) for further analysis. It also brings out the gaps that exist in the
support mechanisms for these.
The community is asked to list all the livelihoods/vocations, including the ones being taken
up by just one or two households, available in the village. These livelihoods/vocations are
then classified into (a) being taken up by a large number of persons (b) though being taken up
by small number of persons, the number of such persons is growing, (c) recently introduced
in the village, and (d) others. After listing all the vocations being taken up in the village, the
community is asked to give the following information for each activity:
• No. of households engaged in the activity; and the number of households for which this
activity is the primary livelihood.
• Seasonality for the activity
• Days of employment provided by the activity
• Range of income from the activity
• Importance for the village. After getting the general importance for the livelihood in the
village, the importance in terms of contribution to the income of the village can also be
separately obtained.

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 Assessment of Livelihoods Reality

The following format ‘Livelihoods mapping 1’ can be used to record the information
obtained during the above exercise.
Livelihoods mapping 1
Village: Block & District:
Date of exercise:
Participants:
Facilitated by:

S. Households # Employment Income

Activity Season
No. Primary Other days range

The following additional information is obtained and noted in the following format
‘Livelihoods mapping 2’ for the following three types of livelihoods/vocations:
1. Livelihoods/vocations in which a large number of families are engaged in.
2. Livelihoods/vocations in which the numbers of persons engaged are increasing.
3. Livelihoods/vocations recently introduced into the village.
Livelihoods mapping 2
Name of the village: Block & District:
Date of exercise:
Participants:
Facilitated by:

Name of the activity:

Support mechanisms Market interaction
Quality
Support Available Ease of of Cost of Input Output
required (Y/N) availability support support markets Terms markets Terms

Complementary and supplementary livelihoods activities/vocations need to be discussed and

recorded. Further, facilitator needs to ensure that the livelihoods/vocations are not reported in
a generic manner (like agriculture) but in a specific manner (like cultivation of paddy). This
is needed as cultivation of each crop is a different livelihood/vocation requiring different
supports. Even those vocations that are being taken up by a very small number of individuals
or those that contribute very little to the income of families undertaking the
livelihood/vocation need to be listed. Listing minor livelihoods/vocations serves at least the
following two purposes: (a) The role that these small vocations play in the families is known.
(b) The availability of support for major livelihoods/vocations is triangulated. Further, study

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 Assessment of Livelihoods Reality

of the minor livelihoods/ vocations might lead to checking the scope for increasing the scale
of the same in the village.
4. 4. Traded-in and Traded-out

This tool provides aggregate information of items going out of and coming into the village,
both for consumption as well as productive activities. Items traded internally within the
village are specifically not captured in this tool. This tool helps the community in getting a
sense of the aggregates. This tool points out (a) any anomalies present among those items
going out of the village and coming into the village (like paddy going out at a low price but
rice coming in at a high price), and (b) items for which a scope for local value addition exists.
The facilitator asks community to list all items/services that the villagers (a) purchase and (b)
sell outside the village. While listing the items, some small items like toiletries can be
combined, but care should be taken to ensure that items like dal, oil, etc., on which villagers
spend larger amounts are recorded separately. The services provided by outsiders to the
villagers and villagers to outsiders should also be included. Where a proportion of the
production of the village is consumed within the village itself, care should be taken to avoid
including this in traded-in and traded-out.
The participants are then asked to reflect on each item purchased or sold and come up with
details as required. The format can be seen below.
Traded-in and Traded-out
Village: Block & District:
Date of exercise:
Participants:
Facilitated by:
Traded-in
(Items coming into the village, including services obtained by villagers from outside)
Quantity Quantity
Rate per Total Season
HH Unit of Periodicity purchased purchased
Item unit (Min purchases of
purchasing reporting of purchase by HH per by HH per
& Max) by village purchase
period year

Traded-out
(Items going out of the village, including services provided by villagers to outsiders)
Quantity
Quantity Rate per
Unit of Periodicity sold by Total sale Season
Item HH selling sold by HH unit (Min
reporting of sale HH per by village of sale
per year & Max)
period

The facilitator should ensure that items like services and wage work outside the village that
brings money in, services and wage work from outsiders, interest paid etc., come in traded-in

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 Assessment of Livelihoods Reality

and traded-out. If shops are established in the village by outsiders (as in shandies), all sales
by such shops are traded-in as money is going out. Further, all inputs for and outputs of major
livelihoods/vocations have to come in traded-in and traded-out.
The following items need to be further analysed: (a) items that are purchased/sold by a large
number of households, (b) items that are purchased/sold in larger quantities, and (c) items
that are a recent addition to the list of purchases/sales and are growing. These items need to
be analysed for the preferred place of purchase/sale, costs associated with making the
purchase or sale and the terms and conditions associated with the purchase or sale.
4. 5. Income and Expenditure Analysis

A study of the income and expenditure of sample households brings out the match/mismatch
between the cash flows at the household level, other vulnerabilities of the households, and
coping mechanisms adopted by the households. By matching the income streams with
expenditure, this tool brings to fore the links and inter-connections between various
livelihood activities.
The facilitator selects sample households to represent important categories (2-3 households
from about 3 categories) in the village, and approaches each household to take up the
exercise. The income and expenditure of the past one year or more is the focus of the
exercise. If the household is willing, the exercise can be taken up in the presence of some
community members.
Income and Expenditure Analysis
Village: Block & District:
Name of the household: No. of members: Adults M F Children M F
Livelihood activities of the household:
Date of exercise:
Participants:
Facilitated by:
Income Expenditure
Source Periodicity Season Amount (Rs.) Item Periodicity Season Amount (Rs.)

We should note that the household may not spend money on all the items consumed – some
of the items may be from its own production (like kitchen garden) or through a system of
non-market exchange (as when some friendly neighbour gives excess from her kitchen
garden). Similarly, money may also be spent on the items produced for self-consumption.
Care should be taken to include these expenses also. We should also record any income that
the household receives by transfer.
Further, the facilitator should discuss and capture any bulk expenditure incurred by the
household during the last 3-5 years and the sources of cash from which the expenditure was
met. Any windfall income that came in during the past 3-5 years should also be documented.
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 Assessment of Livelihoods Reality

The occasion provided by this tool provides good opportunity for the facilitator to gather
information on the sources of debt, terms and conditions attached to the debt, debt existing
for the household at the beginning of the year, the debt retired during the year, additional debt
taken during the year, and reasons for taking the debt and source of income from which the
debt was retired. We can use the occasion to also get information about the stock of capital
existing at the beginning of the year, along with the changes to the capital stock.
4. 6. Value-chain Analysis

Value chain analysis is a description of (a) all the steps through which something attains its
value, (b) the processes, technology and costs involved in the steps, and (c) the manner in
which the value created gets divided among the actors involved in the steps. This tool traces
the changes that happened in the steps in the recent past, the ways in which the actors coped
with the change and the manner in which the change affected the relationships between
various actors. It also looks at the attempts made by the actors to vary the costs and the value
appropriated at various stages and the effect of these attempts on the value created in the
entire chain. It gives a broad social description of the actors involved in the chain at various
stages. The tool also records the practices followed by the best practitioners at various stages.
After livelihoods mapping, the facilitator identifies the most important 3-4 livelihoods/
vocations for further analysis using the tool of value-chain analysis. Information for this tool
is obtained in a four step process.
Step 1: Information from the practitioners of the livelihoods
Step 2: Information from persons outside the village, who are related to value addition and
marketing activities, following the product through the chain of actors that it passes
through till it reaches the end consumer in its various forms.
If inputs (like vermi-compost) are made in the village itself, the value-chain analysis
starts from this point. Else, the value-chain simply takes them as inputs.
Step 3: Identification of best practitioners within the community or nearby
Step 4: Best practices adopted anywhere else
Value chain analysis formats vary based on the category of livelihood – the format for a
farm-based livelihood is different from the format for service, or labour. The format for farm-
based livelihoods begins with inputs and go through pre-production, production, harvest,
post-harvest, local value-addition and marketing stages. The format for services may combine
service provision/production and marketing into a single stage. For labour, only the stages
inputs and pre-production may be relevant.
Further, the information recorded in value-chains helps the facilitator in initiating dialogue
with the community regarding the pre-input stage processes and post-output processes.
A format of value-chain analysis of a farm-based livelihood can be seen in the next page.

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 Assessment of Livelihoods Reality

Value-chain Analysis
Village: Block & District:
Date of exercise:
Participants:
Facilitated by:
Item of value chain:
Local
Pre- Post- Marketing Marketing
Inputs Production Harvest value
production harvest I II
addition
Activities,
Materials,
Tools
Person power/
labour
Time
Seasonality
Technology
Expenditure
Credit (with
source)
Risks
Infrastructure
required
Total
production/
sale
Profit
Recent
changes
Best practices
Gaps
Opportunities

To understand the inter-connections between/among various livelihoods/vocations, we can

use integrated livelihoods system/production system/farming systems analyses.
4. 7. Local Market Opportunity Analysis

This tool is used to observe items that come into the market and go out of the market (in the
nearby shandies and market towns) visited by the target communities. This information can
indicate opportunities that exist in the local markets. Some of the items that come into the
market could be made or processed locally or value could be added to those items that are
going out. This can provide employment to people.
From the list of items, the major items are identified for further analysis. In some cases, the
market studied may have some bulk consumers. Such bulk consumers need to be identified
and the items procured by them, along with quality parameters, need to be noted. In a few
cases, a particular item may get bulked up in the market. This needs to be observed.
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 Assessment of Livelihoods Reality

The format for Local Market Opportunities can be seen below.

Local Market Opportunities
Market studied: Block/District:
Date of study:
Participants who studied:
Facilitator:

Items coming into the market

Source Processing of item in Terms &
Item Total value Season
markets the source market conditions

Item going out of the market

Processing after item
Target Terms &
Item Total value enters into the target Season
markets conditions
market

Self-test questions
4) Indicate which tool(s) you would use to obtain the following information during
livelihoods analysis.
i. No. of people taking up a vii. Practice and use of kitchen
vocation gardens
ii. Important crops viii. Items obtained from forest for
iii. Marketable surplus from crops self-consumption
iv. Percentage of total expenditure ix. Arrangements for managing
on health by a representative common property resources
household x. Persons eligible for government
v. Services available within the support but not receiving it.
village xi. Season-wise use of land
vi. Skills available in the village xii. Vocations that go together
5) Which tool indicates the scope for local value addition?
(a) Social map (b) Resource map
(c) Vocation analysis (d) Traded-in & Traded-out
(e) None of these.

5. Summary

Livelihoods assessment, at the community level, should lead to the preparation of livelihoods
enhancement action plan (LEAP) by the community. The LEAP tools provide us with the
required understanding of the livelihoods situation at the community level. These include -
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Social mapping, Resource mapping, Livelihoods mapping, Traded-in and Traded-out

analysis, Income and Expenditure analysis, Value-chain analyses and Local Market
opportunity analysis.
The assessment should be a balance between micro and macro-aspects, as livelihoods cannot
be understood by ignoring any one of these. The balance should be dictated by the purpose at
hand. When done at the community level, more emphasis is placed on primary data and
participatory tools, while assessments at a higher level rely more on secondary data and
interactions with persons who worked with the communities. Adhering to certain principles
provides discipline to the assessment and minimises sectoral biases of the facilitators.
Review questions
1. Why we cannot assess livelihoods situation only using secondary data?
2. Till which level should we rely more on primary data - Household level, Community
level, Panchayat level, Block level, Regional level, District level, State level? Justify.
3. What do you mean by Trade? And what are the components of trade in and trade out?
4. What are the benefits of doing trade-in, trade-out analysis?
5. Point out some important indicators of poverty and risk in trade in and trade out.
6. Point out how the information obtained using any one tool is triangulated by
information obtained by other tools.
7. Identify the secondary sources through which you can assess the livelihoods in a
block. Who could be the key informants in getting the information?
Activities before proceeding further
1. Analyse the livelihoods situation in a village using the tools indicated.
2. Analyse the livelihoods situation in a block using the tools indicated.
3. Attempt an income and expenditure analysis of your own household. You may want
to use a copy of the table provided in this section.
4. Refer to the principles of livelihoods framework. Identify which principles are
adhered to during the assessment of livelihoods situation.
5. Point out the supports needed in the case of one vocation among your neighbours and
whether these supports are suitably available. If some of them are not available, what
has your neighbour done to overcome the unavailability or deficiencies in the services
required?
Answers to self-test questions
1. False
2. Social acceptance, recency effect
3. Livelihoods Enhancement Action Plan
4. Social mapping, vocation mapping, Resource mapping, Trade-in and Traded-out
analysis, Income and expenditure analysis, Social mapping, vocation mapping and
Traded-in and Traded-out analysis, Income and expenditure analysis, Income and
expenditure analysis, Resource mapping, Social mapping, Resource mapping,
Vocations mapping
5. Traded-in and Traded-out analysis
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Further readings
1. CARE (2002) “Household Livelihood Security Assessments: A Toolkit for
Practitioners”, Prepared for the PHLS Unit by: TANGO International Inc., Tucson,
Arizona.
2. “The Livelihood Assessment Tool-kit: Analysing and responding to the impact of
disasters on the livelihoods of people” FAO, Rome and ILO, Geneva.
3. “Putting the last first” by Robert Chambers
4. ‘Tools for Livelihoods Analysis and Planning’ by Akshara Network for Development
Support Services

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