Integrated rural development: Fighting poverty where most of the world’s poor live – in rural areas

Three quarters of the world’s poor – about 900 million people - live and work in rural areas of developing countries, and depend on agriculture and related activities for their livelihoods. In 2025, when most of the world population is expected to be living in urban areas, 60 per cent of the poor will still be rural.

There is a growing consensus internationally that the key millennium development target of halving the number of hungry and extremely poor people by the year 2015 will not be met unless poverty in rural areas is reduced.

Without significant increases in rural incomes and opportunities, and significant improvements in rural health, education and social services, it will not be possible to meet the other goals, which set out to:

• achieve universal primary education
• promote gender equality and empower women
• reduce child mortality
• improve maternal health
• combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
• ensure environmental sustainability.

ECOSOC High-Level Segment: promoting an integrated approach to rural development

The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) convenes in Geneva from 30 June to 2 July 2003. The theme of this High-Level Segment of ECOSOC is “Promoting an integrated approach to rural development in developing countries for poverty eradication and sustainable development”.

ECOSOC is the second highest deliberative body in the UN system of member governments. The High-Level Segment will result in a ministerial declaration that will be presented to the UN General Assembly.

Rural development and poverty eradication have been addressed at several major UN conferences and summits in recent years. The outcomes of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, the Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development in Mexico, and the World Food Summit + 5 in Rome all included commitments to invest in rural development and agriculture to eradicate poverty.

The ECOSOC High-Level Segment will build on these outcomes, to consider how rural development can contribute to achieving the internationally agreed development goals.

What is integrated rural development?

The world’s rural poor lack many of the things that others use to achieve security for themselves and their families:

• secure access to land, water and other natural resources
• access to financial services to save and borrow
• access to roads, technology, markets and training
• a voice in determining the decisions that affect their lives and livelihoods
• access to health and education services.

Integrated approaches to reducing rural poverty recognize the complexities of rural poverty and the many barriers to overcoming it. They bring together the economic, social and environmental dimensions of rural development and foster partnerships both vertically and horizontally. By including the rural poor as partners, integrated approaches give the rural poor a stronger voice in decision-making, and build their ability to overcome poverty themselves.

Integrated approaches also recognize that when the economic and social status of women is improved, other sectors of society benefit. Given the right opportunities, women can become powerful agents of change in transforming the lives of their families and communities.

In the past, most development projects followed a sectoral approach, for example focusing only on health, agricultural production, education, or institutional reform. Although the need for holistic approaches to development was recognized from the 1970s onwards, projects were usually designed on a “one-size-fits-all” basis that failed to recognize specific local conditions and needs. Often, this led to limited results, or even failures. Based on learning from these past experiences, the new approach to integrated rural development recognizes the need for a territorial rather than sectoral logic, emphasizing that the specific characteristics of each rural area must be taken into account.

Dealing with constraints to an integrated approach

Dealing with national and international policy frameworks is an essential part of an integrated approach to poverty reduction. The complexity of poverty extends far beyond the rural areas where poor people live and work. The rural poor face layers of policy constraints both nationally and internationally, particularly with regard to access to markets and to land.

Two ministerial roundtable discussions scheduled to take place during the High-Level Segment of ECOSOC will focus on markets and land.

1. Market access for agricultural and rural development

Hosted and co-chaired by the President of IFAD, Mr. Lennart Båge, the ministerial discussion on market access will deal with the constraints that limit the ability of the poor to compete in national, regional and global markets.

These constraints fall into three broad areas:

- PHYSICAL
These include poor or non-existent roads, lack of good storage facilities, and difficulties in getting access to reliable and up-to-date information about prices and products

- CAPACITY
The rural poor need access to financial services, better farming technologies, such as fertilizers and irrigation equipment, and they need training so that they can become more efficient and competitive producers. Stronger organizations of the rural poor will give them a stronger voice when dealing with governments and industry.

- POLICY
At national level, farmers have to deal with excessive licensing requirements for traders, divergent standards for product quality, overly restrictive legal frameworks concerning the registration of farmer institutions, and lack of legal frameworks for contract enforcement. At the international level, the agricultural subsidies of developed countries – amounting to almost US$ 300 billion each year - lead to surplus production that, when exported, lowers global commodity prices and has a major impact on the earnings of the rural poor in developing countries. Trade barriers and systems of tariff escalation that increase the rate of import tax proportionately to processing levels that add product value, make products produced by the poor artificially expensive when exported and, therefore, less attractive to consumers.

Policy and regulatory constraints facing market access need to be addressed urgently. To that end, the declaration of the high-level segment of ECOSOC is expected to provide direct input to the World Trade Organization’s ministerial meeting in Cancun in September 2003. The Cancun meeting promises to be the most significant international discussion in a decade on agricultural trade and may lead to a new agreement on market access, reduction of trade barriers and minimization of the effects of commodity price fluctuations that could open up the possibility for markets to deliver the promise of development for poor rural producers.

2. Land use practices and their impact on rural development

Improving secure access to land is essential to eradicating poverty and promoting development. This will be the subject of another ministerial roundtable discussion during ECOSOC, hosted by the International Land Coalition and IFAD.

The roundtable discussion will be based on the premise that access to land is an essential first step, but not a sufficient condition in itself, for sustainable rural development. It must be linked with access to water, financial services, technology, capacity-building and markets.

Of the 800 million people who live with hunger and chronic malnutrition, 350 million are landless or near landless. The numbers of these people are growing as more farmers, women-headed households, pastoralists and indigenous peoples are being deprived of land. This is due to many factors, including land degradation, expropriation or privatization, demographic pressures, conflicts over natural resources, natural disasters, expansion of commercial farming with its reduced use of labour, and the actions of extractive industries.

Uncertain land tenure is a major barrier to development. Without it, farmers neither reap the rewards of their labour, nor invest in sustainable land management practices. This creates a spiral of destruction that twins increasing environmental degradation with increasing poverty.

Rural development and ODA

In most poor countries, agriculture is the largest employer, job creator and export earner. It represents an important opportunity for economic development and poverty eradication. Yet, global investment in agriculture and rural development has fallen sharply – by almost 50% in the decade between 1988 and 1999. It is estimated that US$ 50 billion to US$ 100 billion a year more than current levels of investment will be needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Out of the total aid provided to developing countries, 25 per cent goes to the rural poor, even though they represent 75 per cent of the world’s poor. It is important to ensure that a fair proportion of ODA is invested in rural areas.

IFAD and rural development

IFAD is a specialized agency of the United Nations dedicated to eradicating poverty and hunger in developing countries. It develops and finances, through low-interest loans and grants, projects that enable rural poor people to overcome poverty themselves. Since 1978, it has invested US$ 7.7 billion in more than 600 rural development projects in 115 countries and territories around the world, tackling poverty not just as a lender but as an advocate for the rural poor.

These projects have enabled more than 250 million small farmers, herders, fisherfolk, landless workers, artisans and indigenous peoples to take steps to achieve a better life for themselves and their families.

IFAD works with poor rural people, governments, donors, non-governmental organizations and many other partners to fight the underlying causes of poverty. Its projects strengthen the capacity of rural poor people and their organizations to advocate and negotiate on their own behalf. They also work to increase rural poor people’s access to assets including:

• Secure rights to land, water and natural resources
• Markets for buying and selling products
• Financial services to save money and to borrow
• Technology, research, skills and knowledge to take advantage of opportunities
• Power to shape decisions and policies that affect their lives

IFAD has had several successful experiences with integrated approaches to rural development, through its partnership with the Belgian Survival Fund (BSF). The IFAD-BSF Programme works with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as non-governmental organizations, farmer associations, private sector representatives and community groups.

• Market access for agricultural and rural development
• Statement by President Lennart Båge to ECOSOC High Level Ministerial Segment
• Land use practices and their impact on rural development
• Promoting an integrated approach to rural development in developing countries for poverty eradication and sustainable development: Global Partnerships for Rural Development - Jointly Organized by the World Bank and IFAD
• What meets the eye: Images of rural poverty - The book and the exhibit

For more information:

Mr Taysir Al-Ghanem, Manager Media Relations Service, IFAD
Tel: +39-06-54592034
t.al-ghanem@ifad.org

Mr François Lemmens, Manager, Belgian Survival Fund Joint Programme, IFAD
Tel: +39-06-54592072
f.lemmens@ifad.org

Mr Bruce Moore, Coordinator, International Land Coalition, IFAD
Tel: +39-06-54592206
b.moore@ifad.org

Mr Edward Heinemann, Regional Economist, Eastern and Southern Africa Division, and specialist in market linkages, IFAD
Tel +39-06-54592398
e.heinemann@ifad.org