Livelihood is a concept that highlights individuals and groups striving to make a living, attempting to meet their various consumption and economic necessities, coping with uncertainties, responding to new opportunities, and choosing between various value positions’ (Long 2000 in Pansters & Siebers 2001:17). The livelihoods approach came as a new approach in poverty research, focussing on the assets of the poor rather than on everything they didn’t have.