This briefing paper examines relationships between armed violence affecting rural communities and efforts to maintain, restore and promote already fragile livelihoods. It is one of a series of briefings addressing issues surrounding the interaction between armed violence and poverty-reducing development. This paper seeks to provide an introduction for the staff of the UK government¿s Department for International Development (DFID) and other donor agencies to some of the issues raised in trying to make this connection and to stimulate thinking on these questions in analysis and policy. Some of the key questions to be addressed are: ¿ How can DFID¿s current sustainable rural livelihoods framework be applied to contexts of armed violence? ¿ What are the implications of these relationships for planning and programming rural development? ¿ Conversely, how might development interventions tackle the prevalence and spread of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) and other factors fostering violence that affect livelihoods