rural development 1

Name of the student:                        Mziwamadoda Pongolo

Course:                                                Development Studies Honors

Course Code:                                      Dev 514

Assignment Question:   It is evident that Rural Development initiative always starts with outsiders. Explain how the poor can benefit from outsider’s intervention?

Student Number:                              200503324

Lecturer:                                                                                              Professor Aminur Rahim

Due Date:                                                                                          23 March 2012

Question one

I think it would be a fair thing to do if I start by defining what we mean by Rural Development, because Rural Development is understood differently by individual communities. To explain this point further, rural communities in the developed world are different to the rural communities in the developing world, rural communities in South Africa are different to rural communities in Zambia, rural communities in Gauteng Province are different to rural communities in the Eastern Cape Province and therefore the understanding of Rural Development by these communities will surely be different. According to the World Bank Document of 1975, “Rural Development is a strategy designed to improve the economic and social life of a specific group of people, the rural poor. It involves extending the benefits of development to the poorest among those who seek a livelihood in the rural areas. The group includes women, children, small scale farmers, tenants and landless” (World Bank: 1975]).  Rural Development in the sense of this definition is understood as the most effective strategy for alleviating poverty by introducing policies that will enhance and better the conditions of the poor and weak.

In simple terms Rural Development is devising ways and means of addressing underdevelopment in rural communities; it is about rural transformation by means of agriculture and industry, as people being an important component of this transformation process. Now, it is necessary to understand that when we begin to speak about people as an important factor in this transformation process; people are categorized by the virtue of their class, status and education. This understanding of people brings us to a point of view that people are not the same and their influence on policy making is not the same either. Then the question should be, who are the people involved in Rural Development?

In Rural Development we have two important groups of people who have the power to make Rural Development possible and real, and those people are the “insiders” and the “outsiders”. The insiders are the people living in poor communities, people that need development, people whose influence in shaping the policies of the government is very poor. These people can be men, women, and children of poor education, weak, isolated, powerless, vulnerable and disorganized group living in rural underdeveloped communities. The outsiders are the opposite of the insiders, people living a life that is favorable and fruitful. These people are categorized by their good education, the strength of organizing themselves, strong and powerful economically and politically. These people can be politicians, business experts, academics, religious leaders, which we normally refer to them as an elite group.

These are two important groups of people that are involved in Rural Development. And without these two groups of people Rural Development is in vain or unfeasible. But now, the crucial part about this relationship between the insiders and the outsiders is the question by Chambers that, “whose priorities and who sets the priorities” (Chambers 1983: 141)? What is causing the dilemma in rural development is the fact that the initiatives are not taken by the insiders but the outsiders, the insiders are unable to represent themselves because they are weak, with little knowledge of modern technology. Very often, when the outsiders come to this project they always come having selfish interests of exploiting the insiders, using their political power, economic power, and social status at the detriment of the poor. Naturally, a stronger person has to assist and guide the weaker person, in the context of Rural Development this is what is called “The Paternal Trap”, the attitude of looking at the outsiders as providers to the project rather than looking at them as partners. if these two people have to work together, now the question that will arise, from who’s perspective? This is the basic and important question that people have to ask in Rural Development. This question becomes the common ground on which these two parties can begin working together. Based on this common ground we begin to think of ways of intervention, participative ways of working out a plan that can eventually resolve the poor circumstances of the insiders.  

The popular approach in Rural Development has been that of top-down approach. By this I mean, outsiders dictate upon the insiders in what