TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgement Introduction General ...

Factors affecting the basic assets
Vulnerability forces
These forces may include sudden shocks in the physical environment
such as drought, flood or typhoons, or longer term trends in the
economic environment and resource stocks. Both of these can reduce
the assets normally available to the household.
Transforming structures and processes
Transforming structure and processes refers to the nature and operation
of the institutional environment, encompassing public and private
institutions, laws, policies which can work positively or negatively to
affect access to capital and maintenance of it (Carney, 1999). It is in
response to their asset situation, in the context of the various
vulnerability factors and the prevailing structure and processes, that the
rural poor develop their livelihood strategies.
The challenge for aquaculture is whether it can help strengthen the
assets available to rural households so that they are better able to