This Topic Guide is written primarily for people working with longer-term perspectives to support the livelihoods of people living in places where crises are a threat, are recurrent or are even the norm. It offers perspectives on how livelihoods experts can think, position themselves and act in fast-changing, high-stakes environments. It offers a way of thinking about crises.
It also highlights a need to be courageous in asking important questions in and about crises, questioning some assumptions and entrenched views about the role of long-term thinking in crises (e.g. ‘it’s not time for developmental approaches yet’). It can be challenging to call for genuine livelihoods thinking in a crisis where emergency ways of thinking and working are dominant, even if that crisis has been going on for decades.