Integrated rural development programs: a skeptical perspective
Ruttan, V.W.
International Development Review 17(4): 9-16
1975
ISSN/ISBN: 0020-6555 PMID: 12311877 Document Number: 519306
The present concern with integrated rural development in the developing world represents, in part, a reaction against the distortions produced by the production-oriented (Green Revolution) rural development efforts of the 1960s, which were, in turn, a reaction against the economic failures of rural development programmes of an even earlier vintage. Five general conclusions are presented with regard to programme ideology and design of any large-scale rural development effort. (1) They must be organized around activities and services that have relatively well-defined technologies or methodologies and objectives. (2) They should utilize the relatively unskilled (and inexperienced) human resources that are available in rural areas. (3) Effective implementation is, to a substantial degree, dependent on the development of the institutional capacity to mobilize the limited political and economic resources available to the disadvantaged in rural communities. (4) The problem of welfare in the rural areas of most developing countries remains more a problem of the level of output per person than of distribution. The search for new sources of income growth must continue to be sought in both technical and institutional change. (5) The structural characteristics of most rural communities, and of the societies of which they are a part, will continue to prevent them from obtaining access to many of the available development opportunities, so that development will continue to be characterized by unequal rates of development between rural and urban areas, among rural areas, and among classes within rural areas.