This toolkit is part of a series that explores how development assistance can address key risk factors associated with conflict. It shows how violent conflict can affect individual and community access to essential resources and how an approach that focuses on strengthening that access can help people survive and recover from conflict.
Livelihoods, or individuals’ or households’ access to resources, is often a primary factor in motivating violence. In some cases, if livelihood support is offered early enough, conflict may be avoided.
The toolkits in this series explore individual risk factors in depth. They are designed to serve as companion pieces to conflict assessments. Conflict assessments provide a broad overview of destabilizing patterns and trends in a society. They sift through the many potential causes of conflict and focus in on those that are most likely to lead to violence (or renewed violence) in a particular context. While conflict assessments provide recommendations about how to make development and humanitarian assistance more responsive to conflict dynamics, they do not provide detailed guidance on how to design specific activities.
The toolkits in this series are intended to fill that gap by moving from a diagnosis of the problem to a more detailed discussion of potential interventions. Together, the assessment framework and toolkits help missions gain a deeper understanding of the forces driving violence and develop more strategic, focused, and effective interventions
This toolkit was initially authored by Laura Hammond, Assistant Professor of International Development at Clark University and consultant for the Food Economy Group, and by Stephen Anderson, Julius Holt, and Waddington Chinogwenya, all of the Food Economy Group.
This document is intended to provide USAID mission staff, their partners, and others working in countries affected by conflict and instability with:
- an examination of the relationship between conflict and people’s livelihoods;
- lessons in developing livelihoods programs– including an introduction to livelihood analysis;
- a range of program options designed to reduce livelihood vulnerability, strengthen resiliency, and help people
- manage conflict-related shocks; and
- listings of relevant USAID mechanisms, implementing partners, and contact information.
You can Download this free toolkit from here.
