Abstract:
This paper examined livelihood activities and skill sets available within rural households
in the Zambezi Region of Namibia. Specifically, the study addressed three key questions:
(i) what livelihood activities do rural people pursue? (ii) what demographic factors are
associated with these activities? and (iii) what measures can be taken to diversify and
sustain income from these livelihood activities? In order to address these questions, semistructured
interviews covering 424 households were used to collect the data. The
questionnaire consisted of questions corresponding to the sustainable livelihood
framework including (1) human assets (2) financial assets and major sources of income
(3) physical and natural assets and (4) social assets. A series of logistic regressions were
fitted from which the estimated odds ratios (y) were derived to ascertain the effect of the
predictors on the livelihood activities and skills. Odds ratios were used to measure the
magnitude of strength of association or non-independence between binary data values.
The results showed that the use of various livelihood activities and skills in different
combinations is of significant importance to rural livelihoods. Five percent of the
respondents obtained income from only one source, with 95 % of the respondents
engaged in a combination of farming and non-farming activities. Most of the respondents
had various reasons for diversifying into other activities vis-a-vis agricultural income,
limited skills, large family size, availability of opportunities, seasonal nature of
agricultural produce, favourable demand for goods and services or a combination of
these. In addition, the results showed that gender, age, designation and education
significantly (p<0.05) influenced the choice of household’s skills. The study concludes
that a combination of rural household activities and skills influenced by a variety of factors have led to improved livelihoods in the study area. For policy purposes, this
suggests that state interventions in rural livelihood skill development can play a
significant role in promoting more sustainable rural livelihoods.
