Sustainable Urban Livelihoods: Concepts and Implications for Policy

 How poverty is understood determines the way policy makers and planners respond to it. A sustainable livelihoods approach (SLA) adopts a distinctive perspective on the understanding of poverty and how to intervene to improve the conditions of the poor. A sustainable livelihoods approach to poverty eradication is one that acknowledges that poverty is a condition of insecurity rather than only a lack of wealth. Broadly a ‘sustainable livelihood’ (SL) is a means of living which is resilient to shocks and stresses, and which does not adversely affect the environment.