Rural Institutions

Current trends of trade liberalization and deregulation, heightened fiscal constraints and decentralization of government services, require the restructuring of public institutions and the transformation of civil society institutions to ensure differentiated policy orientations at district/state and local levels that recognize the diversity of rural households. Public institutions must effectively provide service delivery within the context of decentralization. Civil society organizations and the private sector must become more efficient in the use of productive resources, and in providing services and market outlets to cater for the needs of increasingly diverse rural populations. Participatory approaches should ensure that small farmers, vulnerable sectors of the population and the rural poor are more fully involved in the planning implementation and monitoring of development programmes affecting them.

FAO supports policies and institutional change to ensure differential rural development approaches, especially for poverty alleviation of marginalized groups. It develops, inter alia, methodologies for: (i) assessing the nature and extent of decentralization and distribution of responsibilities between the various services and levels and their involvement in decision-making processes and for monitoring; (ii) dissemination and use in countries on a transfer of capacities from line ministries to local government authorities and civil society organizations, functional analysis and assessment of rural public institutions and human resources; and (iii) the vertical integration of farmer business organizations into enterprises to compete more effectively in global markets. In providing assistance, account is taken of new institutional environments emerging in developing countries which require the introduction of innovative, more participatory approaches, methods and tools to facilitate the delivery of development at services through decentralized public, private or civil society organizations.

 

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