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Rural-urban linkages

Platform Policy Brief No.1
Mind the gap: How to improve rural-urban linkages and reduce poverty

Platform Policy Briefs are meant to be ‘living documents’ and will be periodically up-dated to reflect new findings and developments.

Summary

Economic and social activities transcend a strictly rural-urban divide. Strengthened rural-urban linkages will offer growth and poverty-reducing benefits that span different georaphic spaces, and development strategies need to reflect this dynamic relationship between rural and urban areas. Given the spatial inequalities plaguing many developing countries and urban-biased government government policies of the past, we must learn to correct these spatial distortions so that resources like labour, capital and goods can move freely within economies. We need to take into account the territorial dimension of development and base spatially-balanced development strategies on a thorough understanding of the relationship between rural and urban areas.

Further reading

• World Bank: World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography
• Rural and Urban Dynamics and Poverty: Evidence from China and India. Discussion Paper 196
• Beyond Rural Urban: Keeping Up with Changing Realities. Issue Brief 37
• New Evidence on the Urbanization of Global Poverty. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 4199
• Sahn, D.E. and D.C, Stifel. 2003. “Urban-Rural Inequality in Living Standards in Africa”. Journal of African Economies, 12:4, pp. 564-597
• The Urban Part of Rural Development: The Role of Small and Intermediate Urban Centres in Rural and Regional Development and Poverty Reduction. Rural-Urban Working Paper 9

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