Sustainable Livelihoods Strategy

Sustainable livelihoods are achieved when the poorest among us face conditions in which they are able to improve their quality of life and reduce their vulnerabilities in an environmentally sustainable manner. It is a notion that emphasises that livelihoods are not only about employment and income generation, though of course these are vital aspects. They also depend on people’s skills and capacities, social relationships, cultural norms and practices, physical assets and infrastructure, political rights and access to natural resources. The Environmental Evaluation Unit was commissioned by the City of Cape Town to assist in developing a sustainable livelihoods strategy for the city, in partnership with all the relevant stakeholders.

The project aims to provide a framework for targeted efforts by the City of Cape Town to support sustainable livelihoods with an emphasis on the role of the natural and cultural environment. The strategy is in support of the City’s Integrated Metropolitan Environmental Policy of 2003, which is defined as a corporate policy of the City, with particular implementation responsibilities for the Department of Strategy and Planning: Environmental Resource Management (ERM). The thematic scope of this strategy is focused on enhancing the role of the natural and cultural environment in the City’s jurisdiction in support of sustainable livelihoods. However, given the emphasis on thematic integration that underlies the sustainable livelihoods approach, the strategy will consider and make recommendations on other, related issues, which may be outside the organizational ambit of ERM. Effective coordination and alignment between different parts of the City, and between the City and other spheres of government and civil society, are thus primary objectives that will underlie many recommendations of the strategy.