Endpiece: The politics of livelihood opportunity

Abstract

This brief article draws together some of the conclusions of the Sustainable Livelihoods in Southern Africa programme. This research has sought to move beyond simple technical/managerial "good governance" solutions to sketch the contours of a realistic, but politically sophisticated, sustainable livelihoods approach. The key policy challenges include: instituting real redistributive reforms, particularly of land; redressing imbalances in market entry and engagement; making decentralisation really work to poor people's advantage; and realising rights increasingly enshrined in progressive legislative frameworks. These face formidable obstacles - and a sustainable livelihoods approach must be rooted in an understanding of the historical legacies and contemporary political/administrative and economic contexts in southern Africa. Such an endeavour would, for example, support mobilisation, lobbying, civic organisation and new alliances around a pluralist and activist politics for livelihood improvement and create links to party-based democratic politics; build on and transform forms of patrimonialism and establish strategic linkages between elites and the poor, and abandon the artificial and misleading separation of public/private, state/non-state in both analysis and prescription.