Background to the Project

Introduction

The international focus on poverty reduction, linked to economic growth, coupled with institutional trends towards decentralization and devolution place increased responsibility on lower levels of government in developing countries to put in place strategies and partnerships to revitalise local and regional economies in socially inclusive ways, which generate sustainable economic opportunities for the poor. Rural development, however, has received relatively little investment compared to other sectors, although large numbers of poor people remain in and originate from rural areas. The contribution which rural economies can make to poverty reduction has in many ways been overlooked for a variety of reasons: an overriding emphasis on social sector investments including health and education (to ensure impact upon tangible poverty indicators prominent in the MDGs); the rapid pace of urbanisation and assumptions about the declining importance of agriculture; a history of costly but not demonstrably successful interventions in the rural sector; and the continuing priorities of crisis management and humanitarian intervention in countries suffering the effects of conflict and natural disasters.

In some regions, however - notably the poorer regions of Europe and across Latin America - new thinking about the role of rural areas and new approaches to rural development have emerged.  These seek to address rural poverty and social exclusion by focussing on the role of local institutional frameworks in tackling the changing needs of rural areas, through promoting economic diversification, and the active development of market linkages across wider regions and with urban areas. These approaches, loosely referred to as Rural Territorial Development (RTD), typically involve efforts to strengthen the social, cultural and economic identify and potential of rural areas.  Typically this is approached via the development of participatory social networks involving the broad range of rural actors (including community and producer associations, civil society organisations, local government and private enterprise) as protagonists in building shared identity and prosperity building on their distinctive economic potential linked to the geographical, cultural and environmental features of rural territories. This approach contrasts with standardised Local Economic development (LED) approaches which emphasise partnerships between local government and then private sector, concentrating on urban areas and economic sectors and are more weakly contextualised from the social and environmental points of view.

Focus and objectives

This research focuses on poor areas of South Africa and Brazil where rural populations have been excluded historically from economic development opportunities as a result of highly inequitable access to land. It examines the inter relationship between efforts to achieve land reform and improved land access to the poor and local economic development in a context in which “traditional” methods of land reform involving centralised programmes for the redistribution of land are losing momentum and political support. The research assesses the potential of emerging rural territorial development approaches to achieve more socially inclusive rural economies and in particular to contribute to improved access and greater local democratic control over agrarian development and natural resources.

The project sought to do this through a series of specific geographical case study areas or territories in each country, and by studying the context in which territorially based rural development approaches are being developed and proposed, and are being applied through literature review and conceptual analysis.

The origin and starting point for this work was the contemporary impasse in land reform programmes in laying the groundwork for more equitable patterns of rural economic growth and development in land unequal countries. This has included an ongoing controversy involving development agencies and civil society movements centring on traditional state led and more recent World Bank promoted market-assisted approaches to land transfers to the poor.  In recent years in South Africa and also in Brazil, land transfer programmes utilising each of these approaches to land redistribution have been found to be poorly linked integrated with broader support to rural development, being pursued in a centralised and de-contextualised ways, in which standardised methodologies are applied. It has been difficult to gain the collaboration of other sectoral programmes in enabling the basic conditions for newly created agrarian settlements to survive and thrive. Beginning in 2003, however the Lula government in Brazil has introduced a territorially based approach to rural development aiming to overcome these type of problems, and this research has sought to learn lessons from the programme developed, through the lens of specific rural territories in the Northeast, the poorest region of Brazil.   

In this context two inter-related sets of questions arise which this research has sought to address:

• What are the actual and potential economic development impacts of land reform programmes, and how can greater contextual understanding and stakeholder participation can contribute to better choice, design and combination of land access instruments?  and conversely:
• How can decentralized territorial approaches better integrate land reforms with wider efforts to put in place more sustainable and socially inclusive rural economic developments in poor rural regions?

The work takes place in the context of declining international support and for resourcing land reforms and for rural development as a whole, reflected in lower than expected budgetary settlements for land transfer and small farmer support programmes in both the focus countries. The pace of urbanisation, the growth of rural-urban linkages and the declining market opportunities for small farmers in a disabling global trade policy environment have all contributed to this declining interest in agrarian and rural affairs. This however, reinforces the need to explore a territorial approach, to understand how land reform programmes and the social movements which advocate them should respond to opportunities for more diversified livelihoods and local economic development for the poor provided by growing integration of markets for labour, goods and services across urban and rural areas.    

Local economic development requires the creation of an environment that enables the stimulation of new opportunities, in contexts in which there may be limited existing opportunities for economic growth. Sustainable income generating opportunities are required which are accessible to local communities, and to the poorest groups who remain excluded from growing prosperity in many countries and regions.  To foster dynamic change and sustained opportunities beyond the very local scale, the need for new governance and institutional arrangements to manage rural development has been identified, to overcome the often parochial interests at municipal level and the centralised sector focused approaches which predominate in national government. RTD approaches seek to bring about institutional change by promoting cross-sectoral collaboration across adjacent local government units, and new participatory platforms for planning and implementation of local development. Civil society organisations, such as churches,  producer organisations, rural  unions, NGOs and customary social institutions as well as private sector networks frequently extend across municipal boundaries and can potentially play a driving role in strengthening economic development, market integration, cultural identity and social inclusion at broader territorial scales. 

Based on the initial concepts and literature review, the empirical case studies conducted by partners, and a variety of conference and seminar presentations, the project is now issuing a set of eleven Land and Territory Research Papers, being published on NRI’s website. These include:

• Background papers (revised versions of working papers developed earlier in the project);
• South Africa case studies;
• Brazil Case studies;
• Synthesis and policy papers.

plus

• Workshop reports, together with presentations made at workshops, seminars, and conferences.

Various papers also appear on partners’ websites and have been circulated in each country as local dissemination products. A number of the key papers are intended for wider dissemination and will be published under separate covers, circulated amongst the rural development research and policy communities, and provide a basis for peer reviewed journal articles