The Rural Non-Farm Economy Project

In many parts of the world, the number of poor people in rural areas exceeds the capacity of agriculture to provide sustainable rural livelihood opportunities. Even with declining fertility rates and a slowing of population growth, this situation is not going to change significantly. Out-migration is not possible for all members of the rural community, and urban centres cannot (or perhaps should not, for economic or social reasons) be assumed capable of providing adequate livelihood opportunities for all those unable to make a living in agriculture. For these reasons, the Rural Non Farm Economy (RNFE) has very significant potential to address the poverty of people who may not have adequate farming livelihoods and limited prospects of improvement through permanent migration.

The purpose of this project is to promote policies that support non-farm rural livelihoods across a range of less developed countries and transition economies in which the Department for International Development (DFID) and the World Bank (WB) are active.

There are four project goals:

• To develop significant new understanding of the non-farm elements of rural livelihoods for the poor in selected less developed and transition economies generated.
• To enhance understanding of the factors conditioning access to non-farm rural employment for the poor in selected less developed and transition economies generated.
• To generate new data and understanding on the role of local governance in enhancing the RNFE for the poor.
• To develop mechanisms for integrating research results into relevant policy processes
  

These goals were pursued through a range of activities including literature review, primary data collection in selected case study locations, workshops, technical reports, policy studies and policy advocacy activities.

The RNFE project has four key components:

• The capacity of the poor to access sustainable non-farm rural employment opportunities
• The role of local governance in the RNFE
• The characterisation and analysis of the RNFE in transition economies, Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States
• Methodologies and diagnostic methods for the RNFE

The direct beneficiaries are intended to be the donor community and national governments in the target countries. These institutions will benefit in terms of their enhanced capacity to devise policies and interventions that enhance the poverty-reducing role of the RNFE in developing and transition countries. Ultimate beneficiaries will be the poor in those countries where such policies and interventions are taken up.

The Natural Resources Institute (NRI) has worked with World Bank and DFID country teams and national partners to achieve the project goals. The project team is working in Armenia, Georgia, India, Romania and Uganda.

See the project website for more information.