Livelihoods, Agri-Business & FPOs

The Significance

A livelihood refers to the methods and means of making a living, encompassing an individual or a group’s capabilities, skills, assets, income, and activities necessary to secure their essential needs. A livelihood is sustainable when it allows people to cope with and recover from unexpected events, while enhancing their well-being and that of the future generations, with limited impact on the environment. In simple terms, a livelihood can be considered synonymous with an occupation or group of occupations that allow an individual or group to earn income, which in turn is used to satisfy human needs.

A livelihood programme is the approach that enables families to generate sustainable income in a planned way. Alleviation of rural poverty, employment generation, income generation, skill and resource upgradation, education, health, fulfillment of primary needs are the objectives of livelihood promotion. Livelihoods play an important role in women empowerment and reducing social inequalities.

MART’s Experience

A significant part of MART’s work in the development sector involves creation and promotion of livelihoods. MART pioneered the last mile distribution concept, first implementing it for Unilever’s product category to reach less than 1000 population rural locations in 18 states by integrating 85000 Micro Credit Women as Entrepreneurs, under Project Shakti.

MART’s 3M Model is an innovative approach to initiating micro enterprises based on the three tenets of micro finance, micro markets and micro planning. MART has developed a 3M manual that is followed by the development team in the identification of livelihood activities. MART implemented this model in several large-scale poverty alleviation projects such as APRLP, OTELP, WORLP, MPDPIP, APDPIP, Rajasthan DPIP, JSLPS, TNVKS, IEMaC, JTDS, GFDC, OLM, OFSDP,OCPL, SERP among others, across India.

In this sector, MART has worked in multiple states across the country with clients in Government and Corporate Sector, successfully implementing more than 20 multilateral and bilateral projects. MART’s interventions have created livelihood opportunities for thousands of entrepreneurs. MART has also engaged in strategy development for livelihood promotion for Corporate Social Responsibility and Rehabilitation & Resettlement projects.
Some of our projects include the following –

• Income Generation Activity Support Agency for the Odisha Forestry Sector Development Project (OFSDP), Department of Forestry and Environment, Government of Odisha and JICA. MART also conducted a livelihood opportunity analysis in 14 Forest Divisions under the OFSDP.
• Strategic Professional Field Support for Livelihoods Promotion for Odisha Tribal Empowerment and Livelihood Project
  (OTELP), DFID, IFAD and WFP.

MART’s Commitment

• MART is a pioneer on market led livelihoods, offering comprehensive solutions from research, techno-managerial services and training.
• MART strives towards impacting the lives of poor by adopting an inclusive marketing approach.
• MART brings in active participation of private sector in designing livelihood and skill development strategies by following principles of co-creation that create sustainable solutions to impact poverty.