Rural revitalization critical to achieving sustainable development goals: report

WASHINGTON, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Revitalizing Rural areas can stimulate economic growth and tackle the challenges that are holding back the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), according a new report released Wednesday.

The 2019 Global Food Policy Report, produced by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), said Rural people around the world continued to face a crisis as they struggled with food insecurity, persistent poverty and environmental degradation.

The global Rural poverty rate is 17 percent, compared to 7 percent in urban areas, and Rural people comprise 70 percent of the world's extremely poor, according to the report.

Ending hunger and malnutrition to achieve both the SDGs and climate goals require a "fundamental transformation" of our food and agriculture system and of Rural areas, the report said, adding that the "linchpin" of such a transformation is Rural revitalization.

Key actions to revitalize Rural areas include strengthening Rural-urban linkages, transforming agricultural food systems, scaling up Rural nonfarm economic opportunities and boosting Rural employment, improving Rural living conditions and reforming Rural governance.

One essential driver of Rural revitalization is "rurbanomics," an approach that emphasizes the linkages between Rural and urban economies, the report said.

"When we talk about Rural revitalization, it doesn't mean that urbanization should be neglected. It actually plays a significant role," Fan Shenggen, director general of IFPRI, told Xinhua.

The development of e-commerce, for example, could connect hundreds of thousands of farmers with urban consumers, he said.

Fan encouraged countries to improve infrastructure, saying that better roads could facilitate the exchange of products, personnel and information between urban and Rural areas.

The IFPRI director general also called on Rural areas to support people-oriented governance, which would allow Rural residents to have a larger say in deciding where investment would go.