English - IFAD

36
Rural Poverty Report 2011
reduction are expected to peak between 2025 and 2040. In sub-Saharan Africa, current
trends suggest that this phase will occur later in this century, which means that a
dividend may become available somewhat later than in other regions. 14 While in
many countries urbanization and urban-based growth have played a key role in
capturing the demographic dividend, elsewhere urbanization is not bringing about
the kind of opportunities that can directly absorb a growing rural workforce and
provide pathways out of poverty. In much of sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, a
demographic dividend is likely to be realized only if rural economies become much
more dynamic spaces – through both agriculture and the rural non-farm economy,
both for today’s and for tomorrow’s rural generations.
Meanwhile, changes in the market, governance and natural environments facing
smallholders and other poor rural people, as well as changes in mainstream
discourses on rural development and rural poverty reduction, contribute to creating
a different context for rural poverty reduction than existed just a decade before the
food price crisis. As concerns the market environment, for instance, growing urban
populations and the emergence of new middle and industrial working classes in many
countries have resulted in an enormous expansion of urban food markets at the
national level. Much of the global food trade and supply is now managed through
global value chains controlled, to a large degree, by a limited number of large
corporate actors. In many developing countries, modern markets for high-value
foodstuffs are emerging, in which the same large corporate actors play a major role
and exercise substantial power within the chain. However, these markets coexist with
traditional markets, which in most developing countries remain important elements
of the national food supply system. Both modern and traditional markets offer
opportunities for profitable engagement by smallholders and other poor rural people;
however, they come with a whole set of risks. The risks and costs of engaging in the
modern markets, in particular, are sometimes too significant for smallholders to
address without adequate support.
Changing patterns of rural-urban integration also contribute to a new environment
for rural poverty reduction. In many parts of the developing world, rural and urban
areas are becoming increasingly interconnected socially and economically, which
means that the nature of ‘rural’ is changing. Rural societies and economies are no
longer so distinct; increasingly they interact on a regular basis with urban society –
something made possible in large part by mobile telephony. They also depend on it:
migration is a reflection of this interconnectedness, and remittances drive rural
economies in many contexts. Conversely, sometimes large numbers of people living
in urban and peri-urban areas live in conditions similar to those in rural areas in
terms of services, infrastructure, markets and at least partial reliance on agriculture. For
the future, this report argues that the changing nature of ‘rurality’ and the changing
relations between rural and urban spaces and populations are together likely to be a