Investing in agriculture is not enough to reduce poverty because the rural poor are often engaged in multiple economic activities. While pro-poor growth starts with agriculture, reducing rural poverty requires increasing the productivity of small-scale agriculture, creating jobs, fostering economic diversification and investing in people.
That was one of the views expressed during Monday’s Side Event on “Policies for Effective Rural Transformation, Agricultural and Food System Transition”, held as part of this week’s session of the Committee on World Food Security in Rome. Mr. Henri-Bernard Solignac-Lecomte, from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), was one of the panelists at the event. He told the audience there that a new rural development paradigm is being rolled out for developing countries, one that will be multi-sectoral, focusing not just on agriculture, but on rural industry and services and rural-urban linkages.
The approach will involve not just national governments, but also local and regional governments, the private sector, international donors, NGOs and rural communities. It includes a menu of 25 policy tools which offer opportunities for rural development in the 21th century.
A consistent and robust strategy is not enough if implementation capacity is weak, however. It is important for an effective development strategy to build governance capacity and integrity at all levels.
Read the full post on the CFS blog here.
Blogpost by Melano Dadalauri, #CFS43 Social Reporter – melano.dadalauri(at)yahoo.com
This post is part of the live coverage during the 43rd Session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), a project GFAR is running in collaboration with CFS. Melano Dadalauri is one of five YPARD members who was fully sponsored by GFAR to participate in the GFAR social media bootcamp and to attend CFS as a social reporter from 17-21 October 2016.
Picture: Farmer inspects failed corn crops in Mauritania (Courtesy: Pablo Tosco/Oxfam)
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