Livelihoods are inherently intertwined with markets. People exchange their labor for money, which allows them to purchase goods and services to meet their needs and wants.
Key Market Systems
Goods: key goods produced for sale by disaster-affected populations in a given context
Services: labor related to recovering from a given disaster (such as construction-related labor), key types of labor traditionally practiced by disaster-affected populations in a given context, other types of labor with strong potential for development, supporting services of key labor markets (such as job matching services, training, and finance)
Main Concepts and Trends
In rapid-onset crisis contexts, one of the primary concerns is the preservation of existing livelihoods and productive assets. Where crises become protracted, longer-term approaches that focus on improving livelihoods opportunities by drawing from market systems development approaches are more appropriate.
Humanitarians have been conducting emergency market assessments on labor markets since at least 2010, mainly using the EMMA Toolkit, whose flexibility allows it to be adapted to complex, service-oriented market systems. Many of these market assessments have focused on evaluating local labor supply to determine to what extent major humanitarian responses, such as large-scale reconstruction projects, can rely on locally available labor.
Some assessments have focused on identifying alternative livelihood opportunities for people whose previous livelihoods have been disrupted by crisis, while others have simply tried to better understand existing livelihood strategies, how they are affected by crises, and strategies for improving them.
Livelihoods and the Market Systems Development (MSD) Approach
Traditional livelihood projects usually focus on strengthening the supply side of the labor market to improve the soft skills, employability, and resource base of crisis-affected people. The idea is that training and financial support will enable people to start small businesses that will provide a means of livelihood and lead to self-reliance. While these approaches can succeed in promoting short-term income generation opportunities for crisis-affected people, they often run into significant problems in the long term, particularly when implemented on a large scale.
For instance, a crisis-affected population may be supported to set up the same traditional, income-generating activities, such as selling vegetables, hairdressing, or being a mechanic in locations where market demand for these products and services is already satisfied. This over-supply of labor is likely to distort local markets and may depress income levels and/or force other businesses into bankruptcy.
A market systems development (MSD) approach offers a more holistic and systemic framework to livelihoods. It applies a thorough analysis of the existing supply and demand for labor, as well as the enabling environment that governs the market system and its supporting functions. It aims to address the root causes of the underlying market constraints that prevent low-income groups from finding work, and not just treat its symptoms.
The Inclusive Market Systems (AIMS) approach, developed by the International Labour Organization, uses a push-pull approach to market systems development. Push interventions work on the supply side by developing the skills and capacities of the target group to engage with the market, for instance through technical or entrepreneurial skills development, strengthening social networks, or transfer of assets. Pull interventions, conversely, work on the demand side, to develop sectors and value chains that have the potential to expand and diversify available employment opportunities.
MERS Employment Standards
The Minimum Economic Recovery Standards (MERS), developed by the SEEP Network, includes a set of Employment Standards related to activities that prepare individuals for work or create jobs through humanitarian and economic recovery projects.
Standard 1: Decent employment is promoted: Interventions should focus on promoting decent and safe working conditions that allow individuals to earn a fair wage and allow for personal and professional development.
Standard 2: Interventions are labor market-based: Interventions should consider labor market realities, current market conditions, and sociocultural context.
Standard 3: Job sustainability is supported: interventions should encourage ongoing skills building and support job sustainability and longer-term employment opportunities.
CASE STUDY:
EMMA of the Casual Labor Market in Bangladesh
A 2017 EMMA exercise conducted by Oxfam in Bangladesh found that the flash flooding of rice paddies had severely disrupted the casual labor market and that affected households faced 3-5 months of lost income as a result. As short-term measures, it recommended supporting alternative income sources, particularly fishing and infrastructure projects (including through cash-for-work programs), and salvaging as much rice-related casual labor as possible by providing vouchers for agricultural inputs to larger landowners. It also made a number of recommendations for supporting longer-term economic recovery and implementing disaster risk reduction measures.
Key Resources and Tools
Mercy Corps
These supplementary tip sheets were developed to guide field teams through the process of assessing labor markets, from creating the initial methodology to utilizing and sharing the data and final report.