The SLA framework provides a picture of the key elements in describing or understanding the issues affecting livelihoods in a household, community, region or country.

This includes the concepts of:

• People's assets or capitals (natural, human, physical, financial, social. Some would add political and spiritual. A useful distinction can be made between social based on trust and political based on power. Khanya-aicdd has also divided human into two so that it is not so large: human capacity development, and safeguarding the human resources of health, nutrition, security and welfare.);
• People's vulnerabilities, or susceptibilities to stresses and shocks eg to vagaries of climate, conflict, crime etc;
• The policies, institutions, processes and organizations (PIP) which affect people (formal, informal, at different levels);
• The outcomes that people are looking for (which may be to increase the capitals, to reduce vulnerabilities, or others);
• The livelihood strategies people adopt to achieve these (which are affected by the PIP environment, vulnerabilities etc);
• The opportunities which people have to address the outcomes, which has proved very useful in planning (vulnerabilities=threats, capitals=strengths/weaknesses).

There are several implications of using this framework to help in understanding where interventions may be needed:

• We recognise the importance of human capabilities as central to the debate on poverty;
• We need to understand the different types of capital (or assets) that people have;
• We need to understand their vulnerabilities;
• We need to understand how policies, institutions and processes support or hinder their access to these capitals, or increase or diminish their vulnerabilities;
• We need to identify and build on the preferred outcomes of our people (and not decide them for them);
• We need to understand the livelihoods strategies they use and how they can be enhanced (and not assume what are the right strategies);
• We need to see who can assist to deliver these livelihood strategies, and how.

The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework is particularly useful in providing a framework for:

• Structuring and analysing the development situation, how policies and services are affecting it;
• providing a holistic overview of how different elements in development are being addressed; and
• evaluation of impacts.

For example rural development or poverty are very vague terms. The use of the elements in the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework can provide a way of disaggregating these, which therefore makes them meaningful.