Tackling rural poverty, together

Extract

The analysis indicates that, in the case of China, agricultural growth has contributed to poverty reduction in both rural and urban areas, but its effect on rural poverty is larger than its effect on urban poverty. The results for India also clearly show that rural growth helps to reduce rural poverty, but, unlike China, it has no statistically significant effect on urban poverty reduction. Urban growth does not have an important effect on rural poverty reduction in either country, and in fact, in China, the results suggest urban growth correlates with an increase in rural poverty. The lack of effect of urban growth on rural poverty is likely due to several barriers, such as inadequate infrastructure, that prevent desirable spillover effects.