Current Situation and Issues in Rural Development

Current Situation and Issues in Rural Development 

  • The overall purpose of development assistance is to improve the livelihoods of citizens in recipient countries, especially the impoverished. Poverty reduction is internationally recognized as an important assistance issue.
  • For example, in 1996 the DAC set a clear achievement goal in its action policy to reduce poverty.
  • Development cooperation focusing on rural development is a very important component for poverty reduction for the following reasons:

① Approximately three-quarters of the world’s impoverished live in rural areas.

② Many poor people in cities are migrant workers and farmers who have left rural areas.  Therefore, if living standards and income generations in rural areas are enhanced and rural immigrants to cities return to rural areas, excessive population influxes to cities should be reduced, causing poverty in the cities to decrease.

③ Improvement of rural areas can be a safety net when there is a lack of jobopportunities in cities due to depressed economic conditions.

  • Also, many governments in developing countries have recently beenshifting to decentralization in order to adequately deal with local needs. 
  • Due to the necessity for an active local economy within decentralization, rural development is receiving increasing attention.
  • The main actors of development activities are also changing. 
  • Since the end of 1980s, many developing countries’ governments have shifted from bureaucrat-oriented to public-oriented bodies. 
  • Therefore, bureaucrat-oriented development approaches such as “large-scale farm development and agricultural modernization” are changing to people-centered approaches to rural development with a focus on establishing a system to facilitate community participation and the effective use of local resources.
  • This in turn requires flexible, tailored cooperation from donors based on local conditions.

Definition of Rural Development

  • The definition of “rural” differs by country, though it is usually used incontrast to “urban”. 
  • For instance, this word is defined based on population density in Japan, indicating an area other than “an area with over 5,000 people, which consists of each district with a population density of over 4,000 per square kilometer”. 
  • However, we cannot simply apply this definition to other countries. 
  • Moreover, due to the fact that the concept of “rural” varies from Asia to Africa, it is difficult to define it uniformly. 
  • Therefore, the use of “rural” (including fishing and mountain villages) as a relative concept to “urban”, based on social, economical, and natural conditions in each country may be most adequate. 
  • The term could also be used to describe areas where a majority of the residents are engaged in agriculture in a broad sense (including livestock farming, forestry, and fisheries).
  • The final beneficiaries of development assistance are local people in both rural and urban areas. 
  • However, their livelihoods are based on significantly different social, economic, and natural environments. 
  • Most rural residents inmany developing countries (especially in the least developed countries) are engaged in and depend on local agriculture, forestry, and fishery resources to make a living. 
  • If the local people are final beneficiaries of development assistance, the aim of rural development can be defined as the improvement of sustainable livelihoods (especially impoverished groups), with careful attention paid to local characteristics.
  • Frequently, the concept of rural development is used confusedly with “agricultural development”