This report examines the Sustainable Livelihoods (SL) framework, which has gained increasing currency and acceptance in development policy and practice over the last few years. The commitment to eliminating poverty by 2015 in the UK Government White Paper on International Development (1997) led to a rethinking of DFID strategies which gave SL a central role. The SL approach has since been subject to considerable scrutiny as questions are raised about how it can be operationalised in its various dimensions. This report is a contribution to this debate that focuses particularly on one dimension: SL as an analytical framework.