Why households need sustainable livelihoods to afford basic needs

Jun 26, 2017

We need a moment of magic to create lasting change in the lives of vulnerable people

By Simon J. Mone

Everybody now knows that basic needs are the prerequisite ingredients of humanitarian development. Not only as said by the UN Sustainable Development Goals, but in daily life, these are important requirements.

Up to today and probably in the future ahead, we are going to continue coming face to face with major problems. Of finding hardships in accessing modest accommodation, decent health, feeding, education, water and remember, the internet? No matter how hard we strive to get access to these requirements.

No matter how much resources are poured into basic needs projects around our world. Basic needs are important asks from our benefactors and so these problems will be with us not for a short time, but for a long, long time.

No matter how much we focus and re-focus objectives of delivering these services for everyone. It will not happen soon. Look at people who have not been displaced by wars.

They don't experience the inconvenience of having to flee home to go and live in displaced camps. But these groups still cry for humanitarian assistance. How loud then, should those trapped in camps cry? You can imagine.

You see that inadequate supply of water in camps is forcing people to try many water and sanitation options, including those that are considered unclean and thus, unfit for human consumption. This has led to a high prevalence of water and sanitation-related problems.

No doubting that there has been considerable progress made in letting people access basic needs, like water supply and sanitation, shelter and all. Despite the significant progress made, there are still huge gaps existing in accessing basic needs. We see very pronounced gaping holes in levels of access to water supply in displacement camps.

It has driven many vulnerable people towards unclean and unsafe waters, hence the high prevalence of cholera and all other water-related illnesses.

Therefore, how shall we continue to do the hard work yet see so little impact in our basic needs intervention? The answer lies in a review or complete alteration in current method of working in the humanitarian programming.

Current talk of basic human right to access toilet facilities and water and sanitation, seem to only remain on paper, rather than in output. This has to change completely. If all the planned humanitarian innovations are implemented for the long-term, the situation could improve significantly.

No matter how much we sing the praises of rights-based approaches, the sound will dissipate very fast because thesounds don't match the echo. People that are not displaced would find it prudent to say that provision of improved access to basic household needs quite easily translates into self-reliant households.

And can access say clean water without needing assistance. This also is still a challenge. So how much can we say the same about the confined populations?

And asking development agencies to do all the hard work is asking for too much. They can only do so much. As they cannot provide every basic need. The challenge of providing needs is enormous. We need a moment of magic to create lasting change in the lives of vulnerable people.

And the beginning point is to fully integrate development objectives in humanitarian programming. Get agreements signed and let aid agencies tailor their interventions towards development perspectives (shift from relief-based to development-based).

We have seen interventions like community-led total sanitation. We have seen water and sanitation user committees, volunteers (who themselves are vulnerable) and all, struggling to realise relief objectives.

These approaches have worked but have only done so much. We could take it higher. Engage a development-oriented approach.

Until vulnerable people are restored to a level where they can stand on their own, they will always want to rely on hand-outs.

Writer is a civil engineer

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});