The livelihoods approach seeks to improve rural
development policy and practice by recognising the
seasonal and cyclical complexity of livelihood strategies,
helping to remove access constraints to assets and
activities that complement existing patterns, and identifying
ways of making livelihoods as a whole more able
to cope with adverse trends or sudden shocks. A
fundamental precept of the approach is that it seeks
‘‘to identify what the poor have rather than what they
do not have’’ and ‘‘[to] strengthen people’s own
inventive solutions, rather than substitute for, block or
undermine them’’ [27, p. 1].