Iran Daily - Economic Focus - 09/29/05

Iran Daily - Economic Focus - 09/29/05: "Rural Economy Revisited


Iranian rural women are active in economic activities such as agriculture and handicrafts.

With almost 50 percent of Iran’s nearly 67 million people living in rural areas that often lack social and employment opportunities, and with rural-to-urban migration putting pressure on the cities, rural development is now a major focus of the government.
According to the latest demographic figures released by Iran Statistics Center, the country’s population stands at above 66 million, exactly at 66,480,000 out of which 44,372,000 are urban settlers and 22,108,000 live in the countryside.
Public participation is now generally assumed to be a good if not vital ingredient of rural development plans because past development strategies failed through its absence.
According to a report in Payam-e Jahad-e Keshavarzi, earlier, development policies had focused on improving the physical facilities and material resources of rural inhabitants. The emphasis was on investment to restructure and boost productivity, financing of infrastructural projects and the encouragement of inward investment.
An effective approach nowadays is one that seeks to enhance the particular strengths of a rural locality by developing the potential of local actors - individuals, businesses, communities and voluntary organizations - and its cultural and natural assets.
It entails recognizing and accommodating the integrity of local areas - the interdependencies of environment, economy and society within a locality.
For years, pressed by mounting external debt repayments, Iran had been looking for alternative approaches to development without focusing on people’s participation as a mechanism for promoting rural development.
People’s participation implies the active involvement in development of rural societies, particularly disadvantaged groups that form the mass of the rural population and have previously been excluded from the development process.
Through participatory programs and activities it is possible to mobilize local knowledge and resources for broad-based development and, in the process, reduce the cost of governments for providing development assistance. People’s participation is also recognized as an essential element in strategies for sustainable agriculture, since the rural environment can only be protected with the active collaboration of the local population.
The importance of people’s participation has also been highlighted by international organizations with emphasis that a participatory approach including the involvement of NGOs, is crucial to any strategy for successful human development.

Women’s Role
Rural women have always been an important foundation of production units. Without the presence of women, the economic structure of family let alone the locality cannot be sustainable.
Iranian rural women are active in economic activities such as agriculture and handicrafts. These activities let them play an effective role in reducing production costs and increasing family revenues, in addition to attending to their children and household.
Rural women have realized that they must have greater access to education in order to elevate themselves and their own status in the society and their family.
The tendency of rural women to have greater education and participation in decision making necessitates a transformation in social vision and providing new opportunities for participation in the development process. The change in culture and the special cultural roots which exist about the role of women and value of rural women in family and society is indeed a slow process, which needs a greater amount of time to reach its objectives.

Agriculture and associated activities typically accounts for a high share of all employment and national income.

Gov’t Duties
Government support should play out in the form of establishing clear policies and regulations that favor people’s participation and encourage the establishment of people’s organizations.
Towards this end, it is also important to establish a legal framework which provides a basis for free association of rural people in organizations of their choice, introduce and enforce policies and legal and structural reforms (such as land reform, reform of tenancy laws, water use rights, etc.) which promote more equitable access to resources and services for the rural population, especially the poor. Government should also enact and amend laws to ensure equal rights and full membership for women and other disadvantaged groups in people’s organizations and where necessary, enhance provincial authorities to promote and facilitate democratic participation of rural people through organizations of their choice.

Farming
Few countries have significantly reduced poverty in the countryside without also experiencing economic growth. For most developing countries, improved agricultural productivity will be the engine of non-agricultural growth.
Agriculture and associated activities -- the driving force of the economy in many developing countries -- typically accounts for a high share of all employment and national income. In many countries, growth in food and agricultural output has been the main basis of economic growth and higher per capita incomes. Most developing countries that grew rapidly during the 1980s and achieved the largest improvements in food situations experienced rapid agricultural growth in the preceding years.
Rural growth also contributes to reducing urban poverty. When agricultural productivity improves, rural wages and employment rise, reducing labor flows to urban areas -- leading to wage increases for the unskilled and semi-skilled in cities too. Increased agriculture productivity also reduces the price of food in urban areas, often a significant component of household expenditure for the urban poor. Indeed, stimulating sustained growth is unlikely to succeed unless agriculture is first energized.
It is clear that sector-wise policies are no longer adequate mechanisms for solving the multi-faceted and changing social needs of the countryside; the call for more integrated rural policies responsive to the diversity of rural areas has strengthened.
Given pressures on public funding, it is essential that public subsidies available for rural development are targeted efficiently so as to maximize the economic, social, cultural and environmental benefits. More reliance will be placed on rural communities themselves responding creatively to the various pressures.
Endogenous approaches to rural development stress the need to make the most of the local resources, including human capital, and favor encouraging local people as agents in the development process. Participation, therefore, becomes both a means and an end of rural development."