Many people have contributed directly and indirectly to the completion of these guidelines.
The original research work that stimulated the development of these guidelines was carried out under a research programme entitled “Rural Household Income Strategies for Poverty Alleviation and Interactions with the Local Institutional Environment” undertaken by the Rural Development Division of FAO. Thanks are due to everyone involved in that research programme, in particular to those involved in the field research: in India, Vasant P. Gandhi (Coordinator) and Vikas Rawal (Researcher on FAO’s Young Professionals Programme); in Mexico, Raúl García Barrios (Coordinator) and in Mozambique, Bart Pijnenburg (Coordinator) and Carlos Ribeira (Main Researcher).
Within FAO’s Rural Development Division several people supported the authors in different ways: Jennie Dey-Abbas, Chief of the Rural Institutions and Participation Service, was the overall supervisor of the research programme; Kirsten Appendini, Joint Co-ordinator of the programme and Monique Nuijten, Visiting Expert at FAO from Wageningen Agricultural University, drew conclusions on the methodology of the research programme. Robin Marsh, Joint Coordinator of the programme, provided fundamental inputs and guidance in shaping the guidelines; Eve Crowley subsequently took up the responsibility for overseeing the production of the guidelines; Bernd Seiffert supported the completion of the guidelines; Stephan Baas provided useful comments.
Much useful advice was also provided by Alice Carloni, FAO Investment Centre; Jim Bingen, FAO Visiting Expert from Michigan State University; and Mohamed Massouri, Western and Central Africa Division at IFAD. Manuela Evangelista also provided essential support and ideas.
Brett Shapiro undertook the technical editing of the final draft and his comments were valuable in fine-tuning the end result. Sarah McAnespie finalized the layout of this publication.
Discussions with many other development practitioners have also had a significant influence on the way these guidelines have been developed. Thanks go to Jock Campbell, Integrated Marine Management Ltd. and to Venkatesh Salagrama, Integrated Coastal Management Ltd., for the numerous stimulating discussions of institutions and livelihoods over the course of three years of research for the Sustainable Coastal Livelihoods Project funded by the UK Government’s Department for International Development (DFID). Discussions with Julian Hamilton-Peach, at IFAD, and Rathin Roy, in India, have also stimulated the thinking behind some of the content.
