What is Sustainable Rural Development?

Sustainable Rural Development can be defined as:

Improving the quality of life for the rural poor by developing capacities that promote community participation, health and education, food security, environmental protection and sustainable economic growth, thereby enabling community members to leave the cycle of poverty and achieve their full potential.

This can be achieved by:

Documenting lessons-learned in the field on practical solutions to challenges facing the rural poor. Sharing these lessons in a systematic framework so that underserved villagers receive the critical information on development activities they need to begin improving their difficult lives.

The Process:

The dynamics of development processes reveal that rural development is a sequence of four, clearly identifiable development phases.

• A diagnostic (or explorative) phase
• A phase of political negotiations (consensus building)
• The modeling or planning phase
• The phase of implementation

Key themes found in Rural Development are:

• Community Participation
• Water and Sanitation
• Health and Hygiene
• Poverty Reduction
• Food Security and Agriculture
• Disease Control
• Greater survival prospects for mothers and their infants
• Education
• Equal Opportunities for Women
• Conservation and the protection of natural resources and the environment
• Economic Growth and Micro-enterprise Development
• Infrastructure Development
• Science & Technology
• Policy & Administration

SOURCES:

IIRR: International Institute of Rural Reconstruction

http://www.­iirr.­org

Work with the poor and their communities as their partner enabling them to improve their lives and achieve their full potential.

• Learn and document from our work both practical and innovative solutions to the challenges facing the poor, their communities and the natural environment.
• Share our learning and field-based experience through education, training and communication.
• Join with partners in global development to promote and achieve equity, justice and peace for all.

AIARD: Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development

http://aiard.org/about/mission.htm

Improve the quality of life for all people by developing capacities that help to eliminate poverty, improve food security, and conserve and protect the environment, and stimulate broad-based economic growth and sustainable development.

IFAD: United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development

http://www.ifad.org/governance/index.htm

IFAD's goal is to empower poor rural women and men in developing countries to achieve higher incomes and improved food security. IFAD will ensure that poor rural people have better access to, and the skills and organization they need to take advantage of:

• Natural resources, especially secure access to land and water, and improved natural resource management and conservation practices
• Improved agricultural technologies and effective production services
• A broad range of financial services
• Transparent and competitive markets for agricultural inputs and produce
• Opportunities for rural off-farm employment and enterprise development
• Local and national policy and programming processes

United Nations Millennium Development goals

http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

Six years ago , leaders from every country agreed on a vision for the future – a world with less poverty, hunger and disease, greater survival prospects for mothers and their infants, better educated children, equal opportunities for women, and a healthier environment. The MDGs promote poverty reduction, education, maternal health, gender equality, and aim at combating child mortality, AIDS and other diseases – and are providing countries around the world a framework for development.

IIASA; International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis

http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/SRD/rc/intro_1.htm

Sustainable Rural Development (SRD)

Sustainability must be defined in a multi-disciplinary context. The definition should include not only the sustainability of the biosphere but also the viability of the economic, social, cultural, and political systems of the human population. We also assume that a scientifically sound analysis of rural development is only possible, if we take into account the multiple dimensions of rural life. Rural development can be only sustainable if it does not seriously harm the environment. Six dimensions of rural development:

• Human Development
• Natural Resources & Environment
• Economic Growth
• Infrastructure
• Science & Technology
• Policy & Administration

We must pay special attention to the dynamics of development processes. Rural development is usually a sequence of clearly identifiable development phases. Four principal stages of rural development:

• A diagnostic (or explorative) phase
• A phase of political negotiations (consensus building)
• The modeling or planning phase
• The phase of implementation