''The majority of the world’s poor are rural, and will remain so for several decades. Poverty-reduction programmes must therefore be refocused on rural people if they are to succeed. Poverty is not gender-neutral; women enjoy less access to, and control over, land, credit, technology, education, healthcare and skilled work.''

Definition of Rural

There are two main rural characteristics. First, rural people usually live on farmsteads or in groups of houses containing perhaps 5 000 – 10 000 persons, separated by farmland, pasture, trees or scrubland. Second, the majority of rural people spend most of their time on farms.

Who is Most Affected by Rural Poverty?

Rainfed farmers, smallholder farmers, pastoralists, artisanal fishermen, wage labourers/landless, indigenous people, female-headed households, displaced people, and across all categories – women.

• The incidence of poverty is particularly high among indigenous populations; of the world’s 250 million indigenous people, 70% live in Asia.

• Most rural poor are smallholder farmers who live in low-fertility regions and are dependent on uncertain rainfall. Their survival depends on subsistence crops, and sometimes on livestock.

• The landless are among the poorest; they rely on selling their labour during seasonal peaks, but opportunities are rare and the rewards are minimal.

• Although rural women are most affected by poverty, they are denied equity in household decision-making and community participation. They also have limited access to credit, technology, land, education and health services.

Urban and rural poverty are interlinked. Urban work encourages migration from the countryside to the city. Urban-oriented policies alone may fail to reduce urban poverty. It is therefore important to address rural poverty in order to make sustainable progress on urban poverty.  

Poverty and Gender

Women have less access to, and control of, land, credit, technology, education and health, and less access to skilled work. Women also suffer discrimination in pay, even for the same job or task, and in access to land, legacies and credit. Poor rural women face multiple tasks and, on a daily basis, rearrange competing priorities to ensure their own and their children’s survival.

Discrimination in education early on in life affects the economic, social and political position of women later on. With their family and home duties as well as employment, women work longer hours than men. Women have less chance of escaping poverty.

 Where Does Rural Poverty Occur?

• Latin America: In spite of some reduction in the incidence of rural and urban poverty, poverty levels remain high. Serious inequality in the region means that poverty is substantially above official predictions.

• Asia: Most of the world’s poor live in Asia, where rural and urban poverty have decreased. Regionwide ratios of rural-to-urban poverty have risen since 1985.

• Africa: There has been little reduction in poverty in most of the region since the late 1970s, but the previous exceptionally high ratios of rural-to-urban poverty have fallen. The proportion of poor people is highest in sub-Saharan Africa.

• Middle East and North Africa: Prosperity is increasingly threatened by growing income inequality and potential civil strife.

• Europe and Central Asia: Poverty is increasing rapidly. In countries of the former Soviet Union, the number of poor has more than tripled.

 The Shifting Nature of Poverty

• Poverty is not static: its numerical and geographical concentrations shift constantly.

• Rural areas are more at risk from large falls in employment induced by climate; from droughts and floods; from illness and high mortality; and often from war, cattle rustling or civil disturbance.

 Barriers to Poverty Alleviation

• Lack of social services in remote rural areas

• Lack of land

• Lack of education

• Lack of access to markets

• Lack of access to health facilities, sanitation and immunization

• Lack of education for poor women keeps fertility high, especially in Asia, and large families impede female education and prevent them escaping from poverty

• Lack of power to influence decisions on service delivery (schools, health centres, etc.) at the local, regional and national levels. 

Demographics

In much of Asia and Africa, 50 years ago – and even today often among the rural poor in many areas, notably of West and Central Africa – 20-30% of new-born children died before the age of five. Parents insure against high death rates with even higher birth rates.

This situation is being transformed by the impact on rural poverty of falling child mortality, followed 10-25 years later by falling fertility. Fertility has been declining, since the 1980s at least, throughout most of the developing world, including Africa.

Later than others, the rural and the poor have come to benefit from the decline in child mortality and other incentives to later marriage and lower marital fertility. Rural women in developing countries tend to have between one and three more children than urban women. For the rural poor, the gap is bigger.

Casting a shadow over this demographic potential is the threat of HIV/AIDS. Some 34 million are now infected, about two thirds of them in Africa. Initially a problem of the urban non-poor, HIV/AIDS in the developing world increasingly affects the rural poor. Exposure originates substantially from male migration and female prostitution.

The demographic window of opportunity, which has transformed the prospects for progress in East Asia in the past 30 years, can do the same in other developing countries in the next 30, but only if benefits target the rural poor.

For further information contact:

At.Rahman@ifad.org or G. Geissler@ifad.org
Corporate Strategy Unit

Prepared by the Communications and Public Affairs Unit
IFAD, Via del Serafico 107, 00142, Rome, Italy
Tel: (00) 3906 5459 2485, Fax (00) 3906 5459 2143
E-mail: communications@ifad.org