Tackling rural poverty, together

Extract

The GDPRD has commissioned a review of various documents which were published in view of the UN MDG +5 Major Event in September 2005 on the role of agriculture and rural development in achieving the MDGs.
The purpose of this condensed narrative is to provide a joint donor statement which highlights and critically discusses the role of agriculture, an integral part of rural development, for achieving the MDGs, in particular MDG 1 (to halve hunger and poverty by 2015).
The key messages of this narrative are summarized in the GDPRD advocacy pamphlet ‘Targeting rural poverty to achieve Millennium Development Goal 1’ (available also under Platform Products)

This review argues that without an improvement of agricultural productivity, economic growth in rural areas will not be achieved. The role of agriculture in its historical context is discussed and is compared to its major challenges in the future.
Further on, the economic requirements as well as the most promising strategies for agricultural and rural development to promote pro-poor growth are highlighted. Finally, the main institutional and political requirements at international, national and local levels in making use of the full potential of agriculture are discussed.

The narrative demonstrates clearly that, in order to attain the goal of the MDGs, the world community has to concentrate its efforts on the rural areas of the developing world, where the large majority of the world’s poor people live. Only more investments by national governments, the donor community and private enterprises in rural areas will help to reduce rural poverty by providing more equal access for rural women and men to resources such as land and water, local and international markets and financial, health and educational services.