Someone’s ‘livelihood’ refers to their capacity to make a living; that is, how to achieve food and income security through economic activities.

A ‘sustainable livelihood’ is one that allows people to recover from crisis, and maintain consistent quality of life over time.

If you’ve seen Oxfam’s TV adverts, you’ll probably remember that if you give a man a fish, he can feed his family for a day – but if you give him a net, he can feed his family indefinitely. That’s the essence of Oxfam’s livelihoods strategy, which helps to realise people’s rights to a long-term income, as well as a safe environment, housing, clean water and sufficient food.

Oxfam believes that economic rights are a part of fundamental human rights. While international trade can really help to reduce poverty, global trade rules are at present loaded unfairly against the poor, making their livelihoods precarious and unstable.

Oxfam currently operates three main strategies to improve the livelihoods of the poor:

• Agricultural development, focusing especially on the power of poor producers in local, national and international markets.


• Empowering women workers, particularly those working in global trading chains, to increase security and improve working conditions.


• Improving livelihoods in urban areas.