Opinion of tools

Name of the tool
Sustainable Livelihoods Approach

Positive comments about the tool
• The users of the SLA in Awel Aman Tawe believe that the tools provision of support for the project team resulted in a comprehensive but positive shift in focus from a technical environmental product focused initiative to a broad-based community regeneration scheme. This helped shift the focus of the project from looking at end results to the process.
• Hinshelwood (2003) believes that the simplicity of the tool "lends itself to adaption, to recreation, to an informal, flexible practical use".

Negative comments about the tool
Criticisms of this tool include:
• for maximum benefit it needs to be used as one of a number of tools.
• that there is a lack of recognition of time as an asset and the absence of political capital within the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, which as the project develops, is increasingly important (http://www.livelihoods.org/lessons/case_studies/lesson-engy1.html).