Rural Development_Theories and Approaches

8/11/2019 Rural Development_Theories and Approaches

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Concept of Rural Development:Theories and Approaches

Dr. Pankaj Kumar

Lecture 1


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Introduction

Globally, poverty still has a rural face. Three quarters

of the worlds two billion poor live in rural regions,where poverty manifests itself in factors other thansimply low incomes.

The poor lack access to clean water, educationalopportunities, health services and support fromthe government.

Poverty also has a negative impact on social relationsand it puts human lives at risk throughenvironmental hazards.


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In an agrarian country, rural development is of primeimportance. There is no national development without

rural development.

Dudley Seer says that the questions to ask about acountrys development are: What has been happening

to poverty? What has been happening tounemployment? What has been happening toinequality?

If all three of these have declined from high levels, thenbeyond doubt this has been a period of developmentfor the country concerned.


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Rational of Rural Development

Rational for rural development appears to have emerged out of

the non-applicability of the percolation theory of economicdevelopment, urban bias of development and consequent spectre

of poverty and unemployment in rural areas.

The World Development Report 1990 rightly observes,

Povertyas measured by low income tends to be at its worst in rural areas,

even allowing for the often substantial differences in cost of

living between town and countryside. The problems of

malnutrition, lack of education, low life expectancy, and sub-

standard housing are also, as a rule, more severe in rural areas.

The importance of rural poverty is not always understood partly

because the urban poor are more visible and more vocal than their

rural counterparts.


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The International Labour Organisation and Asian

Development Bank Studies and World Development Reports

highlighted the problems of rural unemployment and related

poverty problems.

Despite substantial and impressive increases in food and

overall agricultural outputs in some regions of a number of

developing countries, the plight of landless labourers and

small farmers has not improved significantly.

Chinese success in eliminating destitute and unemployment

through a system of communes attracted the attention of

policy-makers around world. Government and international

agencies started a search for alternatives to collectivist models;

this led to many reformistexperiments in rural development.


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Most social and economic indicators such as mortality, life

expectancy, primary enrollment rate, income, physical

infrastructure, social services and literacy consistently showthat rural areas compare unfavourably with urban areas.

The question of rural development in the developing

countries has assumed importance and attracted a lot of

attention of researchers and policy-makers not only on

account of economic and demographic consideration like

vast population but also on account of political importance

of rural electorate in a democratic setting.


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Rural + Development

The rural is the place where the ongoing encounter,interaction and mutual transformation (in short: theco-production) of man and living nature is located.This encounter occurs through a wide range ofdifferent practices, which are spatially and temporally

bounded. These include, agriculture, forestry, fishing,hunting, rural tourism, rural sports and living in thecountryside (Van der Ploeg,1997).

Development is not purely an economic phenomena butrather a multi dimensional process involving re-organisation and re-orientation of entire economic andsocial system.


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Development is process of improving the quality

of all human lives with three equally important

objectives: raisingpeoples living levels

increasing peoples freedom to choose

creating condition conducive to the growth ofpeoples self esteem

Todaro


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Concept of Rural Development

Rural development is a concept, a phenomenon, a

strategy and a discipline.

As a concept, it connotes overall development of rural

areas with a view to improving the quality of life ofrural people. In this sense, it is a comprehensive and

multidimensional concept and encompasses the

development of agriculture and allied activities ---

village and cottage industries and crafts, socio-economic infrastructure, community services and

facilities, and above all, human resources in rural

areas.


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As a phenomenon, it is the result of interactions

between various physical, technological,

economic, socio-cultural, and institutional factors.

As a strategy, it is designed to improve the

economic and social well-beingof a specific groupof people --- the rural poor.

As a discipline, it is multidisciplinary in nature

representing an intersection of agricultural,social, behavioural, engineering, and

management sciences.


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Definition of Rural Development

Rural Development is a strategy to enable a specific group of

people, poor rural women and men, to gain for themselvesand their children more of what they want and need. The

group includes small scale farmers, tenants, and the

landless.Chambers (1983).

A process leading to sustainable improvement in the quality of

life of rural people, especially the poor. Singh (1999).

According the World Bank (1997) Sustainable Rural

Development can make a powerful contribution to four critical

goals of poverty reduction, wider shared growth, household,

national, and global food security and sustainable natural

resource management.(World Bank, 1997).


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The process of rural development may be compared with

a trend in which each coach pushes the one ahead of itand is in turn pushed by the one behind, but it takes a

powerful engine o make the whole train move. The

secret of success in development lies in identifying and,

if needed, developing a suitable engine to attach to the

train. There are no universally valid guidelines to

identify appropriate engines of growth, if at all they

exist. It is a choice which is influenced by time, spaceand culture.


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Evolution of Economic Development Theories

Pre-classical (16thto Late 18thCentury)

Classical Economics (1776s-1870s)

Neo-Classical Economics (1870s-1930s)

Keynesian Economics (1930s-1970s)

Marxian Economics (1950s-1970)

Development Economics (1940s-1990s)

Neo-Lliberalism (1990s onwards)

Kindly note that the timeline does not necessarily imply loss of significanceof a particular theory.


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Meaning of Development over Time

Period Perspectives Meaning of Development

1800 Classical Political Economy Remedy for progress, catching up1870 Latecomers Industrialisation, catching up

1850 Colonial economics Resource management, trusteeship

1940 Development economics Economic growth-industrialisation

1950 Modernization Theory Growth, political and social modernisation1960 Dependency Theory Accumulation-national, autocentric

1970 Alternative Development Human flourishing

1980 Human Development Capacitation, enlargement of peopls choices

1980 Neoliberalism Economic growth, structural reform,deregulation, liberalisation, privatisation

1990 Post development Authoritarian, Disaster management

2000 Millenium Development

Goals

Structural Reform


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Approaches to rural development

Rural development is characterised by a mix of theoryand practice: that is both ideas about howdevelopment should or might occur, and real worldefforts to put various aspects of development intopractice.(Potter, 2002: 61).

Histories of thinking about rural development oftenattempt to periodise different approaches and key ideas

by decades. In part these reflect the preoccupations ofthe four UN development decades which commencedin the 1960s. Hence it is often said that the:


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1960s are associated with modernisation approaches

emphasising technology transfer.

1970s are associated with large scale state developmentinterventions and integrated rural development programmes.

1980sare associated with market liberalisation and attempts

to roll back the state.

1990s are characterised as being strongly process focused

with an emphasis onparticipation and empowerment within

a context of diversifying rural livelihood opportunities. Byend of 1990s a more balanced approach had started to

emerge but there remains no agreement worldwide on how

to get the right mix.


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2000s have a focus on poverty eradication, reinvigoration

of small holder agriculture, sustainable farming systems and

the location of producers within global value chains.

However Ellis and Biggs caution that rural policies have not

evolved in such a neat, linear and schematic manner and that

there are leads and lags in the transmission of new ideas

across space and time.(Ellis & Biggs, 2001)

The table below (adapted from a Ellis and Biggs) provides an

chronology of the changing thinking and approaches

internationally to rural development.


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1950s

Approaches to rural

development

Commentary

Modernisation Modernisation theory held that the small scale subsistence

sector had little potential for improved productivity or

growth. The development of agriculture could only be

stimulated by investment in large scale mono crop estates

and plantations. Large farms were perceived to be more

efficient than small farms as a consequence of economies of

scale.

Dual economy Dual economy models posited the parallel operations of a

relatively advanced sector and a relatively backward sector

alternatively characterised as capitalist and subsistence,

formal and informal, modern and traditional. (Fields, 2007)

Community development Community development approaches were dominant in this

decade. These aimed to mobilise rural communities for

development. However at the time this approach was

primarily fuelled by US foreign policy priorities and became

regarded as an intervention to counter the spread of

communism (Holdcroft, 1976).


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1960s

Approaches to rural

development

Commentary

Green Revolution

Technology transfer

Technology transfer focused on large scale, input intensive

agriculture based on packages of higher yielding hybrid

seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, mechanisation and post harvest

technologies which came to be known as the Green

Revolution.

Agricultural extension, The origins of agricultural extension were based in methods

to try to get rural farmers to adopt new technologies and

farming practices. In this period extension largely ignored

local and indigenous knowledge, farming systems and tenure

arrangements. It also targeted men overlooking that much

agricultural work was done by womenThe changing perception

of rural people as rational

managers of risk and

change

Research into farming systems changed the perception of

rural people who had been characterised as incurably lazy

and resistant to change. Small farmers were now seen to be

behaving in an economically rational way when they rejected

improvements which they perceived to be too risky.


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1970s

Approaches to rural

development

Commentary

Redistribution with

growth,

A joint IDS/World Bank study in 1972 entitled Redistribution

with Growth conceded that,It is now clear that more than a

decade of rapid growth in underdeveloped countries has been

of little or no benefit to perhaps a third of their population.It

examined ways in which resources could be transferred from

wealthy groups to poorer groups in society by means of:direct transfer of income from richer to poorer groups

targeted investments in agriculture, education and health

which would increase the productive capacity, production

and incomes of the poorer groups

redistributing land or other assets in favour of poorer

groups. (Jolly, 2006)Promotion of a basic

needs approach,

A shift of emphasis towards social services and transfer

payments, designed to help the poor, and an extension of

"new style" projects in nutrition, health and education.


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1970s contd

Approaches to ruraldevelopment

Commentary

Large scale integrated

rural development

programmes,

The 1970s was also characterised by large scale, complex,

state led, top down, blueprint approaches to rural

development. integrated rural development projects were

often too complex and overwhelmed the management

capacity of state institutions. Many became technocratic and

remote from local peoples needs.

Limits to growth World

Conservation Strategy

The limits to growth debate began in the 1970s. This

assumed that there were direct linkages between population

growth, poverty and environmental degradation. The debate

promoteddisaster narratives

which cast the poor as

destroying the environment while ignoring the

disproportionately large, wasteful and unsustainable use of

resources by industrialised countries.


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1980sApproaches to rural

development

Commentary

The advent of World Bankled economic structural

Adjustmentand market

liberalisation.

The emergence of neo liberal economic policies and createdthe impetus for the emergence of structural adjustment

programmes (SAP). As of the late 1970s, the WB began to

lend money preconditional upon economic reforms referred

to as the Washington Consensus, and other donors followed

its lead soon after. (Aubut, 2004) These reforms based on

deregulation, liberalization and fiscal discipline, weredesigned to engineer a policy environment which would be

conducive to market liberalisation, economic growth and

development.

The shrinking state and

the rise of international

development NGOs.

At the United Nations, from 41 NGOs granted consultative

status by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in 1948,

and 377 in 1968, the number of NGOs in consultative status

has now expanded to over 1,550. The significant rise of non-

state actors in development has its roots here and in the

process of neoliberal destatisation and accelerated

globalisation associated with the rise of neoliberalism in

subsequent decades (McArthur, 2008)


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1980s contd

Approaches to rural

development

Commentary

Initial emphasis on

participatory research

methods in the form of

Rapid Rural Appraisal.

During the late 1970s and 1980s there was an increasing

focus on approaches and methods to enable outside

professionals to better understand rural realities. This saw a

shift to qualitative and participatory research methods and an

increasing awareness of the value of indigenous technical

knowledge.

Focus on understanding

the functioning of existing

farming systems.

Interventions to promote

drought mitigation and

household food security.

Environment and

sustainability


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1990s

Approaches to rural

development

Commentary

Structural adjustment The 1990s saw the peaking of SAPs with a particular focus on

former communist bloc countries in transition. These

programmes were increasingly associated with high social

and environmental costs and have been criticised for turning

developing countries into amenable players in the

globalising system of free trade and investment.(Carley &

Christie, 2000: 107)

Good governance In combination with the post-Washington Consensus and the

focus on institutions and public sector management in the

1990s, a new policy agenda was formulated focusing on a

more selective allocation of aid based on the quality of

governance. The WB characterised good governance as: themanner in which power is exercised in the management of a

countrys economic and social resources for development.

OECD countries prioritised four elements: the rule of law,

public sector management, control of corruption, and

reduction of military spending.


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1990scontd

Approaches to rural

development

Commentary

Poverty reduction Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) were introduced in

1999 by the World Bank and the IMF as a new framework

(the successor to SAPs) to enhance domestic accountability

for poverty reduction reform efforts; a means to enhance the

coordination of development assistance between

governments and development partners; and a precondition

or access to debt relief and concessional financing from both

institutions(World Bank)

Participatory rural

appraisal

Participatory approaches placed new emphasis on how rural

people compare options, minimise risk, adapt practices and

seek information (Garforth & Harford, 1997). There was

increasing recognition of local knowledge and agency throughprocesses of participatory research and planning (Robert

Chambers, 1997)


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1990scontd

Approaches to rural

development

Commentary

Actor oriented rural

development

There was a shift in emphasis to an endogenous

development paradigmwhich was premised on development

originating from within a social system as opposed to

modernisation with its emphasis on imported models and

expertise. Actor oriented approaches emphasised the

importance of participation, the empowerment of localactorsand unlocking of local resources.(Nemes, 2005)

Environment and

sustainability

There was increasing recognition of the contribution that

environmental goods and services make to livelihoods of poor

rural households and the rise of triple bottom line

environmental accounting. Emphasis shifted to improved

management of the ecosystems that produce these goods

and services to increase household incomes of the poor.

Community based natural resource management and co-

management of environmental resources gained ascendance.


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2000s

Approaches to rural

development

Commentary

Sustainable livelihoods The SL approach recognises the different livelihood sources of

the poor, highlights shocks and stresses which impact on

these and the enabling factors which enhance them. It does

not automatically cast rural people in the role of farmers.

Diversity is the watchword, and livelihoods approaches have

challenged fundamentally single-sector approaches to solving

complex rural development problems. The appeal is simple:

look at the real world, and try and understand things from

local perspectives. (Scoones, 2009)

Millennium Development

Goals, country ownership

and good governance

The Millennium Declaration in 2000 set 2015 as the target

date for achieving most of the Millennium Development

Goals (MDGs), which aim to halve extreme poverty in all its

forms.

The current decade has been characterised by flux and fragmentation in development

thinking and rural development policy despite the overarching focus of attaining the

Millennium Development Goals.


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2000scontdApproaches to rural

development

Commentary

Decentralisation Linked with the good governance agenda has been the

concept of democratic decentralisation. This involves the

restructuring of authority so that there is a system of co-

responsibility between institutions of governance at the

central, regional and local levels according to the principle of

subsidiarity (UNDP). Democratic decentralization is premisedon new local institutions being representative and

accountable to local populations and having a secure and

autonomous domain of powers to make and implement

meaningful decisions.

Sector wide developmentapproaches The appearance of sector wide approaches is closely linkedwith recent shifts in donor thinking emphasising the

importance of country ownership of donor programmes. It

also marks a shift from project funding to the development of

sectoral policy and strategy.


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development

Commentary

Social protection The focus on Social Protection (SP) and direct cash transfers is

about putting money directly in the pockets of the poor to

invest and use at their discretion. This helps people to

manage risk and vulnerability and enables the very poor to

share in the benefits of economic growth since many will not

be reached by trickle-down. Direct cash transfers arestarting to replace traditional food aid and famine relief

measures (Peppiatt, Mitchell, & Holzmann, 2001)

Poverty eradication Progress in addressing poverty has been slow, resulted in the

24th special session of the General Assembly setting targets

to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty byone half by 2015. This target has been endorsed by the

Millennium Summit as Millennium Development Goal 1.

These goals are receiving international attention as part of

the Second United Nations Decade for the Eradication of

Poverty (2008-2017),


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development

Commentary

ICTs for development Reviews of ICT projects in rural areas indicate measurable

impacts from ICT projects focusing on price information and

market access. (IICD, 2006) However they also caution that

technological solutions in isolation are doomed to failure in

the same way that mechanisation and large scale

infrastructure development schemes are associated withfailure in development practice.(Ibid)

Climate change During this decade there has been a mounting awareness of

the challenges posed by climate change and its impacts poor

and vulnerable households.

Fair trade The increasing dominance of global supermarket chains over

the world food economy has been highlighted as one the

main consequences of a globalising agriculture. These

initiatives aim to ensure a fair return to the producers.

Fairtrade really took off in the late 1980s with the launch of

the first Fairtrade label in Holland marketing coffee from

small growers in Mexico.


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The chronology above highlights the breadth anddiversity of elements associated with the rural

development agenda. The chronology excludes

changing approaches to rural service provision,

primary health care, HIV/AIDs and malaria

mitigation, education and transport all key

components of rural development initiatives.


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Theories of Rural Development in

India

An analysis of the rural development programmes so far

implemented in India reveal that there are at least four sets of

theories implicit in them

First on the basis of the coverage of the programme

Second on the basis of the content

Third on the basis of administrative content

Fourth on the basis of spread of effects of development


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1.Balanced and unbalanced theories

Sectors of economy are interdependent and complementary toeach other . Their simultaneous development supports each

others development .

Community Development programme (1952)

Total development of material and human resources of

rural areas.

Covered all aspect of village life including agriculture,

health, education, rural industries, transport and

communication, social welfare and children

Immediate objective was raising agri production

Integrated Rural Development Programme


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The theory of unbalanced, presupposes that resources in an

economy are always limited. So for proper and effective

utilisation of limited resources, deliberate imbalances are created

initially which ultimately lead to balanced development through aprocess of complementarity.

Grow More Food Compaign(1943)

indended to increase food production through development of minor irrigation,land reclamation, etc..

Intensive Agriculture District Programme (1960)

known as Package programme

Ford Foundation Expert Team recommendation

initial concentration of development in a particular district/area

benefits would spread to neighboring area/district

Touched only a fringe of the total population(Thakurdas committee)


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Structural

Socio-economic system and institutions like caste-structure,custom and practices along with tenurial rights, credits,

marketing institutions explain the extent of exploitation.

During the first two five year plans, greater emphasis was placedon the structural factor to bring about rural/agricultural

development. Greater emphasis was placed on establishing an

egalitarian society free from exploitation.

From mid-sixties upto the end of seventies, structural theory

become less important and emphasis was placed more on

technological theories.

2.Structural and Technological theories


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The most important component of the structural theory were land

reforms of the credit and marketing structure.

Adversely affected the interest of richer section

So law framed defectively, executed defectively and interpreted defectively

Technological

Suitable technology could not be developed to bring about

desirable development.

largely confined to mechanical technology

was not very much suitable to Indian situation

after mid sixties it was largely biological technology

solved the problem of food shortage increased inter-regional and intra-regional variation


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Centralized

Decision making, formulation and administration of programmesare done by central board or organisation. There is very little

scope for the people to participate in the decision making

process.

There is very little assessment of local resources and local needs

and aspirations.

In Communist countries local level development programmes areformulated and implemented in a centralized way.

3.Centralised and Decentralized theories


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Decentralized

In a democratic society, peoples participation in the decision

making process, formulation and implimentaion is encouraged.

Proper assessment of local resources and needs is made.

Suitable institutions and conventions are built up through whichpeople give vent to their feelings, opinions and participate in

decision making process.


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Percolation theory presumes that the benefits of rural

development do not remain concentrated in one place. The

benefits trickle down or percolate to neighbouring areas.

This theory may be treated as corollary of the theory of

balanced development.

Polarisation theory, on the other hand, presumes that the benefits

of rural development remain concentrated in the points, where

they originate. These growth-points, rather, suck resources

from the periphery and accentuate the regional imbalances in

economic development.

Percolation and polarisation theories of rural development are

very much akin to Myrdals spread-effect and backwash

effects.

4.Percolation and Polarization theories


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Thank You

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Rural Development_Theories and Approaches