Asset Building for Sustainable Livelihoods
Washington, D.C. January 14 thru 16, 2004

Over the past few years research on poverty has underscored its multidimensional nature. From a starting point of income maintenance, poverty research has expanded to include other dimensions of living standards such as health and education and most recently to concerns with risk, vulnerability and powerlessness. This broadened definition has resulted in a wide array of new concepts such as social protection, social capital and empowerment, as well as renewed emphasis on topics such as participation, local autonomy, and the role for the private sector, especially the non-profit sector, in the provision of basic services.

Several efforts are underway to develop a framework that facilitates policy-making and program design reflecting this more complex notion of poverty and its causes. The most promising of these efforts uses an asset lens to analyze the multi-dimensional nature of poverty. The asset-building approach focuses on developing the stock of wealth available to the poor to achieve sustainable long-term improved well-being. Assets within this framework are broadly defined and do not simply include financial holdings such as savings, ownership of land, business or housing. The broader definition also includes the knowledge and skills of individuals, their social bonds and community relations, and their ability to influence decisions that affect their lives. Assets, in other words, represent a broad array of resources that enable people and communities to exert control over their lives and to participate in their society in meaningful ways. Access to assets gives people the independence necessary to pursue productive livelihoods, cope with catastrophes that threaten to drive them deeper into poverty and to confront injustice.

The workshop included an expert line-up of presenters has been assembled from external development agencies, research institutes, and academic institutions. Speakers included:

• Hernando de Soto, Institute for Liberty and Democracy, Lima Peru.
• Dr. Michael Sherraden, Center for Social Development, Washington University
• Dr. Melvin Oliver and Dr. Pablo Farias, Ford Foundation
• Dr. Michael Carter, University of Wisconsin / USAID BASIS CRSP
• Dr. Caroline Moser, Overseas Development Institute (ODI) United Kingdom
• Dr. Paul Siegel, World Bank
• Dr. Alison Mathie and Gord Cunningham, the Coady Institute, St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia
• Rebecca Adamson, First Nations Development Institute

The Asset Building for Sustainable Livelihoods workshop was structured to give participants a firm grounding in the origins of the asset based approach, how it has evolved, and how it is being used to guide current poverty research and institutional programming. We hope that workshop participants gained an understanding of the new asset building for sustainable livelihoods frameworks, learn tools used to apply the approach and be provided an opportunity to begin to incorporate the different elements of this approach into action programs.

This workshop was sponsored by the Office of Poverty Reduction and Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade (EGAT) of the United State Agency for International Development (USAID), and funded by the Trade Enhancement for the Services Sector (TESS) Project.

See speaker bios, presentations, videos and selected publications