week 1-concept and definition

The treatment of rural and urban areas in this chapter relates to the functions these areas
perform and the specific strategies that are required for their development. The objectives is
to enhance the efficiency of these areas through a professional approach to enhance the
quality of development activities. In the rural areas, the bulk of employment and productive
activities are related to the agriculture sector while the production base of the urban areas is
in manufacturing and services. Enhancing the efficiencies of urban and rural areas requires
a holistic approach, covering the entire socioeconomic spectrum, which involves not only
the local governments but also the provincial and federal governments for those functional
areas, including policy interventions and oversight, which still remain with them. A
challenge, therefore, is to enhance the institutional interfaces, coordination and cooperation
for integrated development activities, particularly in metropolitan areas and megacities,
where there is extensive involvement of federal and provincial government agencies.
With the implementation of the devolution plan, the rural-urban dichotomy has been
removed. All devolved activities are to be undertaken in accordance with the functional
assignments of district governments, tehsil municipal administrations (TMAs) and union
administration. The devolution plan also provides for city districts and towns in a city
district. In accordance with the Local Government Ordinance 2001, the provincial
departments of public health engineering and local government and rural development as
well as development authorities are be fully decentralized to the TMA level, with the
provincial role restructured to effectively perform policy making, regulating and guiding
local governments. The local government functions are to be performed exclusively by the
concerned local governments; all the vertical programmes and parallel structures of the
federal and provincial governments would be fully aligned with the new local government
structures.
In the past many problems arose because of the rural-urban divide and lack of spatial
planning and control of physical developments beyond municipal jurisdictions. With
participatory decision making at the local level covering all settlements, there is now a
framework in place to resolve these problems. There are initial positive indications that the
delivery of local services has improved following devolution. However, comprehensive
capacity building of the local governments is envisaged during the MTDF period so that the
benefits could be fully realized.

Download Files

15-rural-urban-development.pdf (0.17 MB )