Rural Development Report 2016: Fostering inclusive rural transformation

IFAD launched its Annual Rural Development Report 2016 on 14 September in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in Rome, Italy. The focus of the report is on the process of rural transformation and its importance for implementing Agenda 2030 and thus eliminating poverty and hunger. The report aims to shed light on the process of rural transformation, a process that is extremely complex and land-/context-bound. Nevertheless the authors found out that global, regional and national rural development strategy have similar direction, with certain high-priority policy reforms, institutional innovations and investments, depending on the speed of the rural transformation process.

The authors of the report concluded that there are strategies that aim to adapt to changing conditions, strategies that aim to amplify the benefits of the process, and ones that aim to accelerate the pace of transformation and a fourth category that combines features of the previous three.