Rural-urban linkages

Background

The potential of small towns and secondary cities in reducing poverty in both rural and urban areas and in redirecting rural-urban migration from mega-cities. Sixty percent of the urban population of Asia and the Pacific or 800 million people, live in cities of 1 million or less. Of the region’s 800 million poor, 600 million live in rural areas. Due to demand inelasticity and increasing competition in the agricultural sector, jobs are created in secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy, which are largely urban based. Rural-urban migration is not only inevitable but also desirable as it allows labour to move to sectors of the economy where it can be more productive. However, rural-urban migration to mega-cities may be undesirable as it may contribute to the diseconomies of scale of these cities. Many small towns and secondary cities serve as trading and value adding centres for agricultural and other primary goods. They also serve as centres for providing economic and social services to the rural populations, particularly the rural poor. These towns and cities also have the potential to link small and medium sized rural and urban enterprises to the global markets. Thus, there is a need to identify the mechanisms and policy interventions and investments, including development of physical, economic and social linkages to rural areas and to national and global markets needed to fulfil the potential of these cities and towns for job creation, alleviating poverty and redirecting rural-urban migration from mega-cities.

This project will help the target groups put in place procedures and mechanisms to formulate, implement and monitor poverty reduction initiatives at the local level. The project will contribute towards tackling the problem:

• By identifying practices and local level development strategies that utilize rural-urban linkages as the basis of poverty reduction initiatives;
• By strengthening the capacity of the stakeholders including government institutions in the selected cities/towns to undertake poverty reduction.

Target groups:

• Populations of secondary cities/towns and their surrounding rural areas selected in the pilot projects. The project is expected to have a special impact of poor women in rural areas, in particular on female-headed household.
• Local government officials.

Links to related documents:

Poverty Alleviation through Rural-Urban Linkages: Policy implications

Rural-urban linkages for poverty reduction. A review of selected approaches from Asia and the Pacific