Recursos

Los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) se centran en un conjunto interrelacionado de cuestiones que deben abordarse para erradicar el hambre y la pobreza y garantizar un futuro en el que nadie se quede atrás. El Foro Político de Alto Nivel de este año se centra en la "Transformación hacia sociedades sostenibles y resistentes". Se revisarán en profundidad los ODS relacionados con el agua (ODS6), la energía (ODS7), los asentamientos humanos (ODS11), el consumo y la producción responsables (ODS12), la vida en la tierra (ODS15) y las asociaciones (ODS17). En ese contexto, el mundo rural -donde viven la mayoría de las personas pobres y hambrientas- merece una atención especial.

Despite much progress – extreme poverty has been halved since the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were adopted in 1990 – there are still 767 million extremely poor people in the world, and more than 75 per cent of them live in the rural areas of developing countries. Population increases and rising incomes are creating a growing demand for food, which creates both opportunities and challenges for people working in rural areas, including in smallholder agriculture and in the non-farm economy. Rising agricultural productivity, more jobs off the farm and migration are reshaping rural lives, but so too are climate change, environmental degradation, conflict and forced displacement.

IFAD’s experience in developing countries over the past 40 years clearly shows that investing in rural people leads to poverty reduction and economic growth that go beyond agriculture and rural areas. IFAD’s 2016 Rural Development Report presented evidence that inclusive and sustainable rural transformation is fundamental to economic and social growth, and to poverty reduction at the national level.

En 2015, los Estados Miembros de las Naciones Unidas hicieron un llamamiento a la acción para erradicar la pobreza a nivel mundial, reducir la desigualdad económica y poner el planeta en una senda más sostenible: la Agenda 2030 para el Desarrollo Sostenible.

Investing in inclusive and sustainable rural transformation is strategically important for the 2030 Agenda. This has been broadly recognized in debates about the SDGs, particularly the roles of sustainable agriculture, food security and nutrition in relation to SDG2, the eradication of hunger. It is important to recognize that the eradication of hunger is inseparable from the eradication of poverty in all its forms (SDG1). While poverty is often the main driver of food insecurity and malnutrition, hunger and malnutrition also result in the inability to escape poverty. Investments targeted at rural people are needed not only to ensure no one is left behind, but also to unlock the catalytic role that inclusive rural transformation has been shown to play in reducing and eradicating poverty and hunger, as well as promoting wider prosperity.

The participation of rural stakeholders is central to promoting inclusive, mutually beneficial and sustainable urbanization. Globally, most of the world’s poor and food-insecure people are still located in rural areas. Undernourishment continues to be concentrated among populations based in rural areas, although a growing number of poor people living in urban areas are affected. It is thus critical that rural people and their organizations participate in designing and implementing development policies and programmes that have an impact on rural-urban linkages − for example in food
security, territorial development, urban food planning, natural resource management or infrastructure.