Development organizations welcome a people-centered approach to combating rural poverty

By MediaGlobal

25 February 2010 [MediaGlobal]: A new report issued by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD )highlights the importance of a people-centered approach to enhancing global food security. The 2010 Rural Poverty Report takes the issue of global food security as its main starting point, and recognizes that the rural poor are not a homogenous group; the problems faced by a rural community in Brazil, for example, vary greatly from the problems faced by a rural community in Chad.

The report was previewed last week at the 33rd Session of the Governing Council in Rome, Italy, Delegates at the event were given the opportunity to discuss the ideas mentioned in the report, and to comment on any content they believe is critical to their work in agriculture.

Many rural villages, like this one in India, are still extremely poor with only very basic living conditions. (Photo credit: Creative Commons)

Tim Hanstad, President and CEO of the Rural Development Institute (RDI), told MediaGlobal that he welcomes the fact that the 2010 report has a “critically important focus on food security.” Hanstad also highlighted to MediaGlobal the importance of land rights in achieving the goal of food security and said: “Our work demonstrates that when people are provided secure rights to land, food security is enhanced. In India, for example, a family can support itself and rise from poverty when provided a plot of land as small as one tenth of an acre. In China, the government’s policy of granting long-term land rights has enabled small farmers to invest more and increase yields. We are confident that the full report will include recommendations regarding secure land rights as part of the overall strategy to help rural people overcome poverty.”

The 2010 report will also use case-studies to examine the real effect of rural poverty on those affected by it. It also acknowledges that many differences exist between rural people around the globe, and that putting them all into a single category of “poor” is not going to adequately tackle the issue. A preview of the report states that these important differences will be highlighted and that the authors recognize that “the problems faced by men are frequently different to those faced by women, by the youth, and by indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities.”

The last Rural Poverty Report was published by IFAD in 2001 and the findings of the new publication, due to be published in 2010, are seen as extremely significant in the fight to combat global rural poverty. The publication will also examine how people will overcome rural poverty today through participation in the market and through increased employment and agricultural production. It is also hoped that the report will work as a reference for policymakers and development organizations, especially in the developing world.

Lawrence Haddad, Director of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex, England told MediaGlobal: “The attempts to envisage alternative futures will help expand the range of policy options today. The focus on illuminating the perspectives and voices of rural people directly in defining needs, risks, and in evaluating success is vital to strengthen the accountability feedback loop. Finally, leaving behind the tired dichotomies that generate so many distractions will liberate fresh thinking, ideas, relationships and values to reimagining rural development for the next generation. IDS has been a strong partner with IFAD around its leadership on people-centered rural poverty reduction and we look forward to continued co-construction of knowledge in this vital endeavor.”

Once the report has been published, it is hoped that IFAD will live up to its promise to “provide policy-relevant inputs for developing pro-poor agendas at the global, regional, and country levels that empower poor rural people to address old and emerging challenges in a sustainable way.”