David Lewis: To Avoid Reinforcing Status Quo, Focus on Understanding Livelihood Systems

Summary: As the idea of resilience has received more attention from policymakers as a guiding principle for climate change response and development, so too has it garnered more criticism, says David Lewis in this week’s podcast. By implying a “natural” return to a previous condition, resilience thinking could inadvertently promote limited policies that don’t go as far as they could in aiding those most at-risk. “For people who are most vulnerable and the poorest, they don’t want to build back to that previous state; they want to build back better,” says Lewis, a professor of social policy and development at the London School of Economics. Lewis has been working to better incorporate the perspectives and interests of the most vulnerable as a member of the Global Resilience Academy, a five-year research project sponsored by the Munich Re Foundation, International Center for Climate Change and Development, and United Nations University. In a co-authored paper in Nature Climate Change¬, he and academy colleagues advocate for a closer focus on “livelihood systems,” which encompass all the material, social, and institutional resources that shape the ability of individuals, households, and communities to thrive. Those resources include not only tangible elements like land and agricultural inputs that adaptation and development programs often target, but also forms of human capital (like health and educational attainment) and a range of social and institutional dynamics, such as governance, political stability, and equity. For example, firewood and palm leaf collectors in Bangladesh’s Sundarbans mangrove forests are vulnerable to not only to rising sea levels, but also to criminal networks that extort forest entrance fees and take advantage of poor levels of education, which limit forest users’ understanding of their rights. Considering this perspective may help policymakers avoid falling into what Lewis describes as “top-down trap,” creating programs that are ineffective, ill-suited to address actual needs, or reinforce inequitable status quos. “It provides a way of linking the micro and the macro,” Lewis says. “It looks at both the small-scale aspects of how households work and how they go about trying to build and maintain and strengthen their livelihoods, but it also looks at the different forces which both act upon them at the institutional level.” What’s more, a livelihoods framework can showcase the agency and abilities of groups that may otherwise be missed. Interventions that incorporate and augment existing efforts to adapt– like solar-powered floating gardens, schools, and hospitals in the Sundarbans – may be more successful than those that do not. “If we’re looking at changes to the position of the most vulnerable households, it makes a lot of sense to start with the household perspective and to look at the various types of resources that households are already using to try and improve their position.” David Lewis spoke at the Wilson Center on December 4. Friday podcasts are also available for download on iTunes.