Healing invisible wounds and rebuilding livelihoods: Emerging lessons for combining livelihood and psychosocial support in fragile and conflict-affected settings

Populations living in fragile and conflict-affected settings (FCS) endure serious hardship, often including witnessing or having direct exposure to violence. These experiences adversely affect the mind, body, and spirit, and diminish the capacity of individuals and communities to take full advantage of economic empowerment opportunities. A small but growing number of programs have begun to combine psychosocial support with livelihood support in FCS, with some promising indication that this combination can enhance project outcomes. This paper assesses evidence to generate a ‘hypothesis of change’ that combining psychosocial with livelihood support can improve development outcomes in FCS. We reviewed evaluations of three categories of programs: (i) those that provide psychosocial support and assess impact on economic empowerment, (ii) those that provide livelihood support and assess impact on psychosocial well-being, and (iii) those that combine both types of support and assess impact on one or both outcomes.