Preamble

Sustainable Livelihood is a job that gives a decent income, gives some status in society and some dignity and meaning in life. It also conserves and, if possible, regenerates the environment. It provides opportunities for people to work right in their own community instead of having to migrate to the slums of a big city. And the purchasing power and lifestyle provided by such a livelihood would be at least comparable to that of a factory worker in an urban area, where the wages have to be much higher than in the village to compensate workers for higher costs of living.
- Adapted from a lecture by Dr Ashok Khosla at the UN, New York, 30th April 2001.

In the context of developing economies like India, the concept of 'Sustainable Livelihood' is perhaps at variance with 'Sustainable Development', which became fashionable in western intellectual circles following the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), and the subsequent emergence of Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration. The latter concept addresses the complex and inter-related issues concerning energy and the environment on the one hand, and the incompatibility of present development patterns on the other. Thus the need for a sustainable method of development to achieve the goal of a 'positive and lasting development of our planet's resources and population'. However, in the context of Maslow's hierarchical theories of motivation, it is debatable whether the poor and starving communities in the vast rural stretches of India and nations like her can be motivated to contemplate such luxurious thoughts of 'Sustainable Development', when what they need is their daily bread, first.

Rural people are intimidated by the power of the State, which has failed to equitably distribute power between its citizens. The institutional structures that are passed down from history have also inhibited the empowerment of rural communities. Using an aqueous metaphor, these 'institutional structures' may be likened to the canals and pipes that determine the flow of water in an irrigation system. Without making significant changes in the architecture of these structures, it is unlikely that we may succeed in institutionalizing sustainable livelihood strategies, just as we will fail to achieve good irrigation with unplanned canals and poorly laid pipes.

Sankalp Livelihoods Center

The robustness and sustainability of livelihood strategies depend on the degree of empowerment of the primary stakeholder or target user. The scope of any externally administered sustainable livelihood program by benevolent agencies therefore requires a change in the relationship between the service delivery agency and the user.

Our study of the literature and our own experiences at the grass-root level leads us to believe that there are at least seven factors that determine the vulnerability of 'users' to succumb to the endogenous and exogenous pressures when they are released from the relative safety and confines of past 'boxes' to the new regime promising 'total' empowerment, including:

(1) Human capital: the skills, knowledge, ability to labor and good health;

(2) Natural capital: the natural resource stocks from which resource flows that are useful for livelihoods are derived (e.g. land, forests, water)

(3) Physical capital: the basic infrastructure (transport, shelter, water, energy and communications) and the production equipment;

(4) Financial capital: the financial resources which are available to people (whether savings, supplies of credit or regular remittances or pensions);

(5) Social capital: the socio-technical resources (networks, membership of groups, relationships of trust, access to wider institutions of society);

(6) Socio-cultural factors: which is concerned with socio-cultural anthropology and relates to the problem of difference and similarity within and between human populations, which plays a crucial role in the exploitation of natural resources, and the shaping of the environment.

(7) Socio-technical factors: which stresses the reciprocal interrelationship between humans and machines and shapes both the technical and the social conditions of work, in such a way that efficiency and humanity would not contradict each other any longer.

The Sankalp Livelihood Center (LC) has been conceived with the understanding that its programs will involve less intervention and a reduction in the power of the delivery agency to determine the outcomes. This re-positioning of the LC is not just in terms of its relationship with its users, but also in terms of the type of services provided and the manner in which they are delivered.

The objective of the LC is to literally open the Pandora's Box that has historically stifled rural creativity and determine the appropriate transformation processes that should be adopted, by evaluating the multidimensional relationships between the past historical constraints and those of modern 'sustainable' livelihood strategies.

Sankalp Art & Handicrafts

Livelihoods Technical Services

We provide a platform for rural entrepreneurs and anybody else who may be interested in rural development to develop their ideas and translate their projects into reality. At present, we have developed linkages with external bodies in the following areas:

§     VSBK: Partner Development Alternatives in the dissemination of VSBK technology.

§     Pot-in-Pot Project: Disseminate our proprietary 'Pot-in-pot' pottery project for rural refrigeration technologies, that do not consume electricity or conventional fuels for refrigeration of food products.

§     MCR Tiles: Partner Development Alternatives in the dissemination of MCR technology.

§     Solar Energy: Partner TATA BP Solar for the dissemination of a wide range of Solar Photovoltaics and solar thermal products.

§     Handmade Paper Products: Disseminate our proprietary handmade paper products manufacturing technology

Sankalp Microfinance

The Sankalp Microfinance project was first conceived for the benefit of the indigent workforce for the handmade paper-making unit at Santiniketan.

The majority of the rural workforce is employed in informal, independent activities or micro-enterprises using the most basic forms of technologies. However, a variety of bottlenecks prevent the productive potential of this informal sector from developing to even a small fraction of its full potential. The main obstacles are the lack of reliable savings opportunities for poor households and of credit facilities for micro-entrepreneurs, women and small farmers. The bulk of the poor are not served by formal institutions which are generally limited to urban customers and larger enterprises. Success stories in Bangladesh and the recent increase in the numbers of flexible, innovative financial institutions and financial NGOs proves that the poor, rural people are bankable and that doing business with this target group can be operated in a cost-covering and sustainable manner.

Microfinance and the development of decentralized financial systems are therefore extremely significant mechanisms to empower rural communities.

Watershed Development

A watershed (or catchment) is a geographic area that drains to a common point, which makes it an attractive planning unit for technical efforts to conserve soil and maximize the utilization of surface and subsurface water for crop production. In the context of sustainability, moisture content is of paramount importance, since we have seen that sun-bathed, fertile soils without adequate moisture produce little biomass, whereas even infertile soils with the optimum moisture content often sustain comparatively higher productivity of biomass. Excess surface runoff water is harvested in irrigation or percolation tanks while subsurface drainage recharges groundwater aquifers, so conservation measures in the upper watershed have a positive impact on productivity in the lower watershed. Reducing erosion in the upper reaches of the watershed also helps to reduce sedimentation of irrigation tanks in the lower reaches. This systems-based approach is what distinguishes watershed management from earlier plot-based approaches to soil and water management.

Our experience with sustainable development initiatives at TARAgram, Orchha leads us to believe that 'Watershed Development Programs' and 'Biomass-based Energy Strategies' are closely inter-related. Biomass includes trees, agricultural crops, shrubs, grass, legumes, plantations and horticultural species, amongst others. The three key elements for biomass production are (a) sun, (b) soil and (c) moisture.

Successful watershed development (WD) projects have demonstrated the capacity to regenerate entire communities, socially and economically. During the World Bank project executed by Sankalpa Trust, it was shown that watershed development is a crucial component of biomass growth strategies, which leads to ecofriendly technogies for the generation of electrical power for the masses in the rural areas. WD Projects are therefore high on the priority of ARTS for generating sustainable livelihoods.

White Papers

An important activity of ARTS is to continually generate information products and services to promote the cause of ‘Sustainable Development’ in general, and for rural development in particular. These will be available in the form of ‘White Papers’, which will be posted and revised appropriately.