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Policies have considerable impact on people’s livelihoods. They influence the access people have to livelihoods assets and the strategic possibilities for employing these assets to reach favourable livelihoods outcomes. However, policies developed at central level are often not responsive to the policy needs at local level and, therefore, not conducive to local livelihood strategies. Local populations, especially poor and marginalized groups, have often a very weak or only indirect influence on the policy framework affecting their livelihoods. The development and application of tested strategies and institutional mechanisms to support the participation of the rural poor in policy making would facilitate the generation of policy frameworks to reduce poor people’s vulnerability and enable their access to the assets and services they require to pursue sustainable livelihoods. There are few documented experiences of participatory policy making (PPM) involving the rural poor, and still less analysis of those that have been documented. Nevertheless, it is possible to draw some initial lessons from these that would aid in the development of strategies and mechanisms to support the participation of poor people in policy making.
