Exploring sustainable livelihood options for COVID-impacted rural communities in Bangladesh

The COVID pandemic paralyzed all economy-generating sectors of Bangladesh, putting abrupt pressure on livelihood-making. In this study, two sequential surveys were conducted in the Mymensingh district of Bangladesh to gain a deep understanding of the impacts of COVID on job status and post-COVID job preference. The effectiveness of preferred occupations in livelihood resilience within the Sustainable Livelihood Approach (SLA) framework was also empirically analyzed and people-driven policies were recommended for sustaining livelihoods. About 35.96 % of respondents experienced short-to long-term unemployment and migrated to rural areas. The groups most severely affected were predominantly engaged in both formal and informal employment, characterized by lower levels of education, older age brackets, and predominantly female (45 out of 114). In the COVID situation, a large portion of respondents adopted agriculture (18.42 %), aquaculture (10.53 %), livestock farming (5.26 %), and small businesses (13.27 %) as their means of livelihood. However, for post-COVID preferences, respondents remained limited to only 13 job categories, considering aquaculture (22.02 %), agriculture (19.90 %), and livestock farming (26.22 %) as their most desired sectors. Considering all five capitals within the SLA framework, aquaculture and livestock farming were found to be more effective in bringing livelihood resilience within COVID-affected rural communities than agriculture. However, the greater advantages that aquaculture offers in achieving post-COVID livelihood led the authors to consider aquaculture as a decisive choice for policy recommendation. Therefore, the study proposed 28 people-oriented policies under four broad categories (financial support, technical assistance, marketing and logistics, and governance and institutional) in making sustainable livelihoods from aquaculture where financial support takes precedence as their top priority.