Making the spiritual aspects of livelihoods more explicit
Particularly during workshops held for regional counterparts and consultants of IFAD, many participants felt that the SL framework was rather "impersonal" - it tended to imply that people's livelihoods were made up of a sum of different assets, people's access to those assets and influencing factors that affect that access. Experienced field workers emphasised how the spiritual aspects of people's lives is of essential importance and can affect their will and drive to act. In some cases, participants wanted to include "religious" or "spiritual" assets in the livelihood framework. In a workshop in India , the framework was developed by participants in the form of a nine-tiered mandala that linked individuals to the universe, emphasising the importance of this spiritual aspect of people's lives.