Risk and Vulnerability Mailing List Archive

["Ruchi Tripathi" <<address removed>>]

DFID's intervention in this area needs to start by understanding 'who' the 
vulnerable groups are before addressing the causes of their vulnerability.  

ActionAid International recognises the importance of vulnerability analysis in 
its development and emergency related work.  Participatory vulnerability 
analysis is a systematic way of involving communities in a detailed examination 
of their vulnerability as well as developing appropriate actions for positive 
change.  It is based on the understanding that vulnerability occurs when 
people's lives, their livelihood or environment are insecure, weak, defenceless 
and likely to be harmed by external threats/hazards.  ActionAid has been 
developing a more comprehensive framework for analysing the causes of 
vulnerability using participatory tools.  For more information on our work 
around emergencies including work on participatory vulnerabilty analysis 
contact Louise Mellotte at: <address removed> 

DFID through their interventions should work towards reducing risks to engage 
in the market for smallholder farmers, and for those who are not able to engage 
or don't want to - support creation of social safety nets.  They should in 
particular:

1.        Favour vulnerable rights-holder groups in their policy and practice. 

2.        Support the protection and establishment of legal rights and 
entitlements to food from the household to international levels.

        
3.      Adopt a rights approach in respect to protection from hazard including 
man-made and natural disasters, particularly in respect to food aid.
4.      Support and adopt participatory vulnerability analysis in its 
development and emergencies work.
5.      Identify and address critical interactions with other rights and 
vulnerabilities for example in relation to education, HIV/AIDS, and conflict.
6.      Challenge and change attitudes, beliefs and behaviours from the private 
sphere to the international policy arenas, which lead to gender based 
discrimination and power inequality between women and men.
7.      Empower vulnerable rights-holder groups to have access to and control 
over productive and economic resources required for food security. These 
include: productive resources such as land, water, forests; power within and 
access to markets; access to and participation in development of knowledge and 
technologies; protection of indigenous knowledge systems, and access (when all 
else fails) to appropriate safety nets and social protection, including 
emergency relief.
8.      To this end, ActionAid would like to see greater emphasis on 
sustainable agriculture practices and an examination of how it can contribute 
to reducing food poverty, improve water retention and the level of the water 
table, reduce soil erosion, and prevent the loss of diversity through the use 
of locally adapted races and varieties.



ActionAid's vision is a world without poverty in which every person can 
exercise their right to a life of dignity. Registered Charity No. 274467
www.actionaid.org 

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