Rural Development Process

• The rural development process can be difficult, time-consuming, and costly.
• Community residents often are more concerned with daily tasks than thinking about, and coming up with, a vision of their community’s future.
• Residents want their children to go to good schools, they want decent jobs, and they want a safe, clean environment in which to live.
• Without a vision, however, communities have a limited ability to make decisions about these issues.
• It is analogous to driving across the country without a map.
• Who should determine a community’s future other than community residents?
• A consultant hired by the local government to develop a plan, a state or federal agency making decisions about highway bypasses or wetlands preservation, or a private developer constructing a shopping mall or a residential subdivision could all make a large impact on a community’s future.
• Residents of a community need to participate in and actively envision the future of their community; otherwise, other groups and individuals will determine their future for them.
• The community development process can be as important as its products.
• The process in this model shows a linear process that begins with community organizing and moves on to visioning, planning, and finally implementation and evaluation.
• There continues to be some debate over the importance of process versus outcomes in community development.
• Some people argue that the goal of community development is to increase public participation and that it does not matter if their efforts are successful or not.
• Others contend that the ultimate goal is to improve the quality of life in the community, with public participation being simply a means to an end.
• We focus in the process of community development, with the ultimate goal of enhancing community assets.
• It is difficult to maintain interest and commitment to community development processes if participants cannot point to successes.
• In the long run, both process and outcomes are essential pieces of community development.
• In this model, we focus on three areas: community organizing, community visioning and planning, and evaluation and monitoring.
• Effective Approaches for Rural Development

• •Although the trickle-down theory was based on the belief that an expanded macro economy could improve the living standards of  the poor  people, its effectiveness has been questionable.

  •However its failure does not necessarily mean that efforts should be determined at the grass-roots level only.

  •This is because the development of rural areas cannot be achieved without attention to urban areas, which are the main consumers of agricultural products.

  •If conventional development projects were effective, rural poverty would have improved more significantly. Therefore, it is clear that the traditional rural development approach needs to be improved.

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  •Rural development depended on external assistance from foreign countries. However external inputs have been controlled due to donors’ current poor financial conditions.

  • As a result, the promotion of rural development requires effective external inputs to generate sufficient results and is capable to stimulate further improvements.

  •Development issues must therefore be comprehensively and cross-sectionally understood for this to be realized.

  •Maximum use of human and material resources in rural areas is also necessary.

  •Some potential approaches are described as below.

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  Endogenous Development

  •To emphasize comprehensive local development for human rights advocacy, human development and qualitative progress of living standards based on environmental conservation and sustainable social development.

  •To adopt a development approach that promotes inter-industrial relationships through the comprehensive utilization of local resources, techniques, industries, human resources, cultures, and networks placing value on mixed economic working situations. Also, to implement necessary regulations and instruction to promote cooperation between cities and local economy.

• •To facilitate community participation in policy-making. To establish local autonomy through community participation, decentralization and resident self-governance. At the same time, to develop project implementation bodies based on regional realities.

• Participatory Development

• •The promotion of the development of human and physical resources in rural areas requires recognizing the fact that local people themselves are the main implementers of development projects.

  •If the people participate without interest in projects, they become inactive and will depend on external inputs.

  •In order to avoid this situation, local decision-making in project planning and implementation is important.

  •In other words, a project that the local people themselves plan and implement is given priority as local materials and human resources are utilized effectively by the local people’s initiative and responsibility.

  •Local independence and sustainable development of project outcomes are enhanced by the effective use of local resources.