Putting the principles of the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach into fisheries development policy and practice

The Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) combines a conceptual framework with a set of operational principles to provide guidance on policy formulation and development practice. The SLA has been widely used in coastal and fisheries development research and has informed the design of development programmes but experience of operationalising it remains largely undocumented. In the Sustainable Fisheries Livelihoods Programme, which involves 25 West African countries, the SLA has helped to align fisheries policy with wider poverty reduction initiatives and to identify means of contributing to poverty reduction that do not directly increase pressure on fully or over-exploited fish resources.