​This Topic Guide is written primarily for people working with longer-term perspectives to support the livelihoods of people living in places where crises are a threat, are recurrent or are even the norm.

It offers perspectives on how livelihoods experts can think, position themselves and act in fast-changing, high-stakes environments. It offers a way of thinking about crises.

It also highlights a need to be courageous in asking important questions in and about crises, questioning some assumptions and entrenched views about the role of long-term thinking in crises (e.g. ‘it’s not time for developmental approaches yet’). It can be challenging to call for genuine livelihoods thinking in a crisis where emergency ways of thinking and working are dominant, even if that crisis has been going on for decades.

This Topic Guide has been produced by Evidence on Demand with the assistance of the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

Simon Levine and Kay Sharp