Rural development is a characteristic feature of most developing countries.
There has been a growing recognition in these countries that it is an essential part of the solution to the problems of underdevelopment and unemployment.
It is also recognised that the urgent need is for integrated rural development, with the combined aims of increasing the incomes of rural workers, absorbing widespread rural underemployment and/or providing productive employment for new entrants into the labour force.
Commenting on rural employment in the least developed countries, Scarlet Epstein of the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, said: “It is a much more intangible phenomenon than its urban counterpart. A large proportion of Third World rural dwellers still derives its likelihood from family subsistence farming. With an increasing rate of population growth set against strictly limited supplies of cultivable land, this in itself possess serious problems. Moreover, agricultural labour requirements are seasonally peaked, which often result in labour-displacing mechanisation; last but by no means least, important agricultural extension services have so far largely ignored the female labour force”.
She adds that these basic facts of rural life present a challenge – not only in the design but the implementation of development programmes. The International Labour Organisation illustrates the breadth and depth of the problem when it defines rural development as “strategies, policies and programmes for the development of rural areas and the promotion of activities carried out in such areas (agriculture, forestry and fishing) with the ultimate aim of achieving a fuller utilisation of available physical and human resources – and thus higher incomes and better living conditions for the rural population as a whole, particularly the rural poor, and effective participation of the latter in the development process” (DKW Anker: Rural Development Problems and Strategies, International Labour Review). Although not stated directly, this definition implies an integrated approach to rural development is seen as the best way to achieve a multi-pronged attack on rural poverty.
This is in line with most current thinking on the subject.
A second and parallel consideration is how to integrate development in the rural sector into the national economy.
Certainly, employment promotion in rural areas is of central concern and an ideal starting point from which consideration of the whole rural development issue can begin.
Indeed, it can be argued that a systematic frontal attack on rural unemployment, underemployment and poverty is the only way governments can hope to make an impact on these problems – provided, of course, that this is done integral government commitment is of vital importance.
But commitment alone is not enough.
It also requires a clear definition of objectives – both quantitative and qualitative – with, at the same time, the support of streamlined administrative structures to ensure the effective implementation of plans for the rural sector. Taking up the theme of an integrated approach to rural development in the overall context of the economic development programme, one way to benefit the rural sector might be to assign a strategic role to rural public work schemes, especially if sufficient budgeting resources were allocated from the start. In such an approach, a vital concern would necessarily be the integration of the programme into the manpower planning process.
Experts also agree that integrated rural development requires detailed knowledge of the socio-economic structure and, particularly, the existing employment, unemployment and underemployment patterns.
Only this way can the real dilemma of the problem be ascertained and hidden problems exposed.
For instance, such studies might reveal that because rural youth migrated to the cities, the volume of open unemployment appeared unrealistically low.
It might also emerge that there was substantial seasonal unemployment or that there was a large amount of underemployment in the form of low productivity and income.
Particularly, in the context of rural/urban migration, certain cases for research and investigation have notably proved significant:
Causes of migration from rural to urban areas;
What links, if any, do the rural migrants (youth) leave behind in the rural sector;
What kinds of jobs/trades, do migrants pick up after arriving in towns, and
What could be done in the rural areas to attract these young people back to the countryside?
Investigation into these questions would probably show an urgent need for improvement in the working conditions in rural areas, an urgent need for provision of additional employment opportunities, an urgent need to support financially and otherwise, and an integrated approach to rural development.
For instance, to improve working conditions in rural areas and provide productive employment opportunities, some radical experimental rural development programmes have already been attempted.
One of the most influential models of rural-urban migration is that developed by Michael Todaro (1968).
Todaro emphasised the decision to migrate by rural dwellers was rational and economic.
Rural dwellers seek to maximise ‘expected’ income, and the decision to migrate is based on this objective. The tendency by governments to reduce urban unemployment by creating employment opportunities in the urban areas will worsen the situation.
Unemployment would increase because an increase in urban jobs will, firstly, increase the urban-rural income differential – and secondly, it would increase the probability of securing an urgent job.
These two factors are determinants of the decision to migrate among potential migrants.
Job creation in urban areas, therefore, trigger more migrants than could be absorbed by the new jobs. Lastly, it is worth mentioning that Tanzania was led by one of the Commonwealth’s most respected leaders – President Julius Nyerere, whose belief was “development is of people not of things” and has been translated unto some of the most innovative approaches to rural development – the “Ujamaa” rural development programme.
* Reverend Jan A Scholtz is the former chairperson of //Kharas Regional Council and former !Nami#nus constituency councillor. He holds a Diploma in Theology, B-Theo (SA), a Diploma in Youth Work and Development from the University of Zambia (UNZA), and a Diploma in Education III (KOK) BA (HED) from UNISA