Risk and Vulnerability Mailing List Archive

["CONROY CZECH" <<address removed>>]

Dear colleagues


The vulnerability of households(and individual household 
members) to shocks and stresses is partly determined by their 
access (or lack of) to assets. My impression from the 
correspondence so far is that the issue of assets and asset-
building has not received the attention it deserves. The 
Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF) and approach 
emphasized the importance of taking poor people's existing 
assets as a starting point for interventions, and building on them. 
Although the SLF is no longer fashionable, there was merit in 
this approach, and I think it's worth considering in this debate.


Building up liquid assets, and ensuring that they are accessible, 
has been an important component of informal 'protection 
measures' or 'coping strategies' in many countries. Therefore, if 
governments want to ensure that their policies, laws and 
programmes reduce vulnerability rather than increase it, a useful 
starting point would be to identify and analyse poor people's 
current informal 'protection measures' and recent trends. This is 
likely to highlight any negative impacts of past and current 
policies and programmes, and also to indicate areas where 
external support could strengthen informal protection. Let me 
illustrate this approach with reference to India.


Privately owned assets


In my experience (and much of the literature) typical privately
owned liquid assets include goats, poultry, jewelry and trees. 
The kind of approach I am suggesting would study the current 
status of these assets and recent trends, and see what scope 
there may be for technological interventions, or improvements to 
the enabling environment, that would support the continued 
effective use of these 'protection' or 'coping' mechanisms. 


Example 1
 In the case of goats, such a study might reveal
that goat ownership per household has been declining, and that one 
reason for this is the introduction of forest management policies 
or programmes that restrict or prevent people from grazing their 
goats in forests (Conroy and Lobo, 2002; Turner, 2004). These 
policy measures could then be raised and debated at the policy 
level, as has happened in Andhra Pradesh, for example. There 
may be good ecological reasons for such measures - or there 
may be ecologically sound options that allow grazing of goats. 


Example 2
 In the case of poultry, studies might show that
25-30 percent of eggs are not hatching and that mortality rates are 
high, and hence the numbers of birds available for use as liquid 
assets is far less than it could be (Conroy et al.,2003). 
Development agencies can then see whether there are low cost 
technologies available that could address the identified 
constraints and increase people's poultry asset base, and 
research and extension agencies could be encouraged to take 
appropriate actions to make suitable technologies available.


Example 3
Rural people sometimes have trees growing on their
private land that can be sold for use as timber, and this can be 
an important coping mechanism (Chambers et al., 1993). 
However, research has shown that in India many states have 
legal or administrative restrictions or deterrents on the felling 
and/or sale of trees growing on private land, such as permits 
(leading to bribes, or payments to intermediaries) or taxes 
(Conroy, 1993; Negi and Duflo, 2001). Such rules and 
regulations deter people from planting trees on their private land 
or from selling them. Where this is the case, development 
agencies and donors (including DFID) could lobby for removal 
of these restrictions.


Where the assets are productive ones, as in the three examples 
given above, there may be scope for transforming the associated 
activity (e.g. poultry-keeping) into a more productive and 
commercially-oriented one. This will depend, of course, on the 
local context and the prospects for the assets concerned. 
However, in the case of livestock it is well known that the 
demand for products has been increasing more rapidly than that 
for most crops, and is expected to continue to do so, so at least 
part of the picture is positive. (See my contribution and paper 
under the Growth and Poverty theme for further information.)


Common pool resources


CPRs - such as forests, pastures and water bodies - are another
asset that poor people in many countries have drawn on as part 
of their coping strategies, and also as part of their regular 
livelihood systems. CPRs may be a source of various non-timber 
forest products, of timber and of fodder and water for livestock. 
In this case, however, the people do not (usually) own the asset, 
but they may have access rights to them. Here the main issue is 
usually how clear and secure the access rights are. If studies 
show that people's rights are unclear or insecure, or have been 
withdrawn, development agencies can then lobby for 
improvements to the enabling environment.


Forestry example
In India, state governments have promoted 
joint forest management (JFM), involving people in protecting 
forests in exchange for giving them a share in the revenue from 
timber sales. In most states, however, JFM has no legal 
recognition, and administrators can withdraw people's rights to 
the forest overnight if they so wish. Thus, people's rights to the 
CPR are pretty insecure. Here, development NGOs and donor 
agencies could press state governments to give legal recognition 
to JFM, as well as implementing a range of measures to 
strengthen the negotiating position of communities vis-á-vis 
forest departments.


To a certain extent the above approach can be related to the 
three 'levels' that John Farrington described in his 'Theme 
outline' for this debate. The improvements to the enabling 
environment that I have described correspond roughly with his 
second level - productive sector policies. The assets that I have 
described are, in effect, 'insurance substitutes' and therefore 
correspond with his third level, the difference being that they are 
not innovative, but indigenous and traditional.


References


Conroy, C. (1993) "Eucalyptus Sales by Small Farmers in
Eastern Gujarat", Agroforestry Systems, Vol 23, pp 1-10.


Chambers R., Leach M., and Conroy C., (1993) Trees as Savings 
and Security for the Rural Poor, Gatekeeper No. 3, IIED,
London.


Conroy, C. and Lobo, V. (2002) Silvipasture
Development and Management on Common Lands in Semi-arid Rajasthan. 
Pune: BAIF Development Research Foundation and Chatham: 
Natural Resources Institute.


Conroy, C., Sparks, N., Chandrasekaran, D., Ghorpade, A., 
Acamovic, T., Pennycott, T., Natarajan, A., Anetha, K., Pathan, 
R.L. and Shindey D.N. (2003) Key Findings Of The Baseline 
Survey on Scavenging Poultry in Trichy and Udaipur 
Districts, India. Scottish Agricultural College: Ayr, Scotland.


Negi, N.K. and Duflo, A. (2001) "Forestry in Private Land - A 
critique of the legal framework of forestry in private land in 
Rajasthan", Seva Mandir Newsletter, April-June 2001.


Turner, R.L. (2004) Livestock Production and the Rural Poor in 
Andhra Pradesh and Orissa States, India. Pro-Poor Livestock 
Policy Initiative Working Paper No. 9. Rome: FAO.



Czech Conroy
Reader in Rural Livelihoods
Livelihoods and Institutions Group 
Natural Resources Institute
University of Greenwich,
Central Avenue, Chatham Maritime, Kent, ME4 4TB
United Kingdom
[Direct line: 44 1634 883057]
[Direct fax:  44 1634 883377]  

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