Sustainable Livelihoods and Rural Development: Book launches in Japan

Conference on Food, Agriculture and the SDGs
The Politics of Sustainability and Development – Envisioning Global Food and Agriculture Futures

26 November at 13.55 at the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE), JETRO Exhibition Hall, 5^th Floor, Ark Mori Building, Minato-ku, Tokyo

Food and agriculture are central to many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Connecting the SDGs requires an integrated systems approach that starts with people’s own practices and knowledges, recognising diversity, difference and disagreement. The talk will introduce the ‘sustainable livelihoods approach’ as one way of addressing these challenges. With diverse livelihoods as a starting point, questions of class and social difference are central. Basic questions of political economy – who owns what, who gets what and what do they do with it – equally are core issues.

Negotiating pathways to sustainability is therefore not just a technocratic exercise to be led by experts, but one that is fundamentally political, and must involve deliberation and debate amongst diverse actors. If the challenges of the SDGs are to be met, a transformative approach is needed. The talk will explore the practical and policy challenges of seeking transformative solutions for sustainable food and agricultural systems through a politically-informed livelihoods approach.