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Lesson 30:Rural development

Objectives

The objectives of rural development, according to the World Bank, are not restricted to any single department but spread over several, and the resultant mix serves to raise agricultural output, create new employment, improve health and education, expand communications, provide housing etc.

According to Singh (1999), the main objectives of rural development in all societies, irrespective of their economic, political and socio-cultural systems are:

1. to increase the availability and improve the distribution of the life-sustaining goods, such as food, clothes, shelter, health and security;
2. to raise per capita purchasing power and improve its distribution by providing better education, productive and remunerative jobs and cultural amenities
3. to expand the range of economic and social choices to individuals by freeing them from servitude and dependence.

Therefore, a measure of rural development should provide, at the minimum, an indication of per capita availability of life-sustaining goods or per capita income in rural areas, as well as some idea of the distribution of income, assets and other means of socio-economic welfare.