Compare methods

	Capability Approach Measurement	Sustainable Livelihoods Framework
Field	Development Studies	Development Studies
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1999	1998
Originator	Amartya Sen; Martha Nussbaum	Robert Chambers & Gordon Conway; Ian Scoones; DFID
Type	Normative framework for evaluating well-being and development	Analytical framework for understanding livelihoods and poverty
Seminal source	Sen, A. (1999). Development as Freedom. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN: 9780385720274	Scoones, I. (1998). Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: A Framework for Analysis. IDS Working Paper 72. Institute of Development Studies, Brighton.
Aliases	Capability Approach, Sen's Capability Approach, Functionings and Capabilities Measurement, Human Capability Framework	SLF, Sustainable Livelihoods Approach, SLA, DFID Livelihoods Framework
Related	4	4
Summary	The capability approach, developed by Amartya Sen and given a concrete list-based form by Martha Nussbaum, evaluates individual well-being and social arrangements in the space of capabilities — the real freedoms people have to achieve the kinds of lives they have reason to value — rather than in the space of income, resources, or subjective utility. Measurement under the approach means identifying valued functionings, the resources and conversion factors that turn resources into functionings, and the freedom people enjoy to choose among them.	The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF) is an analytical lens for understanding how poor households construct their livelihoods, drawing on five categories of capital assets within a vulnerability context that is mediated by institutions and policies. Crystallised by Robert Chambers and Gordon Conway and operationalised by Ian Scoones and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) in the late 1990s, it shifts development analysis from sector-by-sector or income-only views to a holistic, people-centred account of what people have, what they do with it, and what outcomes result.