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Origin and evolution of Rural Development concept and policies: From rural
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 ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT AND
POLICIES: FROM RURAL COMMUNITIES TO TERRITORIES

Javier Calatrava

Consultant in Environmental Economics and Rural Development. Granada (Spain)

SUMMARY

Although often we read in the literature that the beginning of the Rural Development concept
and policies is linked to the emergence of the Basic Needs paradigm in Economic Development
Theory, formulated by Seers in the early seventies of the past century, this is only a partial truth,
because previously some countries had implemented rural development policies, such as the
Rural Development Programme of 1955 and the Rural Community Development laws of the
United States and the first free government of India in the fifties and sixties. In fact, the term
already appears in English texts in the decade of the forties.

Moreover, the genesis and nature of rural development policies are different depending on
whether countries are developing or industrialized, because while in the former rural
development is an attempt to combat poverty, and normally has a strong agricultural
component, in the latter emerges more as a corrective instrument of spatial imbalances
previously generated by the fordist industrial urban concentration development and, usually,
has a certain approach initially anti- agrarian, or at least not preferentially agrarian,
emphasizing the necessary economic diversification.

The paper deals with the evolution of the concept and policy of Rural Development with
emphasis in its early years (1955-1980) trying to identify and analyse the factors behind this
evolution, which have modulated the gradual shift from the first participatory (local population-
administration) rural development policies, with a focus, to some extent, still sectoral, and often
acting over administrative spaces, to the current policies of endogenous development of rural
territories, managed by various forms of social partnerships.

1
Key Words: Rural Community Development, Integrated Rural Development, Basic Needs,
Sustainability, Endogenous Development, Territorial approach.

INTRODUCTION

From the mid-eighteenth century began to take place an unprecedented phenomenon in the
history of mankind: For the first time the GDP of a country, England, grows steadily and this
process not only benefit emperors, nobles, large traders or church, but their benefits reach, to a
certain extent, the different social classes: businessmen, industrialists, workers and indirectly
employed artisans and peasants. To explain this phenomenon, which was initially called
Economic Growth, and its consequences, some of the social sciences such as Economics and
Sociology were born. It was a process of urban industrial concentration, based on strong
accumulation of capital, application of technological innovation and mass production of very
uniformed goods (commodities). Schumpeter, in 1911, studying the role of innovation in
Economic Growth, used, for the first time, the term "Economic Development", a term minted
quickly, and that will remain as such until after World War II, and subsequently it will vary,
because firstly it will lose its purely economic nature, and secondly it will be complemented by
various adjectives that qualify its changing goals, objectives and strategies

Indeed, after the Second World War sign are perceived, in most developed countries, of certain
perverse effects of Economic Development, particularly as regards social inequities (unequal
distribution of the wealth generated), lack of territorial equity (many rural areas, and even
minor non-industrialized urban ones, have been left out of the process, and suffer depression
and rural exodus) and subsequently environmental damage. Then they begin to appear new
goals and strategies, which crystallize in different development models and paradigms. As
regards achieving greater territorial equality one of these strategies would be Rural
Development, ie specific development for rural areas.

The literature on the genesis of Development and the evolution of its paradigms is abundant
over the last century, and especially since the end of World War II, while the writings
concerning Rural Development (RD) are also abundant but mainly concentrated in the last three
decades. The works dealing with RD use to be quite consistent in conceptual aspects, planning
techniques or strategies, but they are not so in regard to the RD genesis, and the evolution of its
objectives and strategies, where existing works often present different views: Some consider, for
example, that RD is a relatively recent European invention, for others is an idea born in France
in the mid-sixties, others share the common opinion that RD was born in the seventies linked to
World Bank programs to developing countries, inspired by the Basic Needs paradigm, other
texts state that it is really a result of territorial equity objectives applied to development after the
crisis of fordist production model, and also there are authors who argue that the origin is older
and can be found in USA at the beginning of the fifties. In my opinion these differences are
logical, and not necessarily inaccurate, it depends on what you mean by Rural Development,
and if we are talking about developed or developing countries. Is the RD conceptual diversity
that leads to the diversity of opinions about its genesis.

This work aims to provide a schematic overview of the evolution of the RD concept and
policies, with greater emphasis in its early years (1955-1980) trying to identify and analyse the

2
causes that have favoured such evolution, characterizing each of the stages by their level of
certain characteristics of the type of development as: sectorality or integrity, application
basically to administrative spaces or to rural territories with high degree of natural, historical
and cultural identity, descending or ascending approach to planning, role of agriculture in the
process, process endogenism level, level of process sustainability, etc.

To facilitate the chronological overview, commenting stages for decades has been tried,
although obviously the changes in the concept and rural development policies do not match
within a decade, because, as Ellis and Biggs (2001) indicate, the ideas and their implementation
does not appear "encapsulated" in time, but often, as will be indicated, an idea or paradigm
appears at a time, unfolds and is institutionally crystallized much later; thus, for example, the
transcendental concept of sustainable development(or sustainable welfare), appears in the
scientific literature already in 1972, it did not pass to the political arena until the Brundtland
Report in 1987, and it was institutionalized as a development goal from the next decade.

The severe restriction on the number of words imposed to Congress submissions prevents me
from dealing on deep about such a broad and multifaceted issue, forcing to treat it in an
excessively schematic manner, particularly as far as the last two stages is concerned, on which,
on the other hand, there is an abundant and qualified literature of any kind, and that have been
only described here with some basic features in an almost telegraphic way.

GENESIS OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT: THE PIONEERS.

If we consider Rural Development as a continuous process aiming to increase the welfare of

rural societies, the embryo of specific actions for development in rural areas has to be found in
the US in the early twentieth century with the appearance of the Country Life Movement
(CLM), a social movement concerned with improving the standard of living in rural areas. The
CLM had, to some extent, rooted in the tradition of existing Community Development in the US
since the last third of the nineteenth century. Phifer (1990). The actions of this movement soon
crystallized into the constitution by President Roosevelt, in August 1908, of the Country Life
Commission (CLC), which included agricultural and forestry scientists, social scientists and
representatives of the federal government, under the chairmanship of the known agronomist and
writer Liberty Hyde Bayle. The CLC had the task of advising the president analysing the
problems of rural areas and suggesting solutions. Roth (2011). The CLC made in 1909 a famous
Report (Report of the Country Life Commission to the President), in which various causes of
the situation in rural areas were pointed out, among which one of the major problems detected
of rural populations was the lack of organization to exploit their own resources to generate
wealth and enhance the quality of life of the community. The CLC urged the US Department
of Agriculture to coordinate with the Land Grant Universities to start programs with the aim of
helping to organize rural populations in order to play an active role in improving their own
quality of life. In my opinion, this report is still today, after over one century, a valid benchmark
for analysis and diagnosis of rural issues.

Programs to generate development in rural communities began in some states of the Union.
Extension Agencies were responsible for starting these programs locally. Such activities will
grow enough in the early twenties, and much slow down with the Great Depression of 1929,

3
which leaves also high levels of poverty in rural populations, but greatly help to facilitate, from
1932, the work of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, that was responsible for
alleviating the effect of the Crisis in rural areas. Also they help to design the methodological
basis for the realization, in the context of the New Deal, of development programs with more
territorial dimension and scale, being the best known the Tennessee Valley Community
Development, which began in 1934, where the population was organized to take the lead in its
development and assume most of the program's actions. The success of this program, which in
just a decade significantly increased the level of income and quality of life of the inhabitants of
the Valley, led other governments to consider developing similar actions on specific territories.

These pioneering actions of development in rural areas were usually planned and executed on
administrative spaces, counties or groups of counties, with the participation of the population
involved, and were much focused on the aspect of organization and animation of people for
development and the improvement of the local institutions. While these actions also potentiating
non-agrarian activities had, to some extend, sectoral approach, since it was the Department of
Agriculture with the Land Grants Universities Extension Services that promoted the
development of such programs. It was common to create a local Task Force or Action Group, to
promote and implement the initiatives and projects, but not always operated like that, and
sometimes the promoters were the extension agents themselves, which clearly represented a top-
down approach. In the case of the Tennessee Valley, given their territorial dimension and
complexity, this promoter role was carried out by a public body created for this purpose (TVA:
Tennessee Valley Authority).

The CLM was very heterogeneous concerning the origin, mentality, objectives and strategies of
its members: including urban agrarian people, partisan to improve living conditions in rural
areas, where they found, linked largely to farming, values that urban societies were missing, and
thought that this improvement would slow the exodus to the cities and thus maintain the positive
social values of rural life; reformers, rural or urban, as they thought that only a live and
active rural areas could provide adequate food to growing urban populations, and were for that
supporters of reforms of urban nature, especially organizational and institutional, in rural
societies; patriots, who considered, as president Roosevelt did, that the rural society was the
backbone of American society, and therefore understood that rural development was key to the
nation, and innovative farmers that, wishing to modernize their profession, thought that rural
development could facilitate technological and managerial innovations to agriculture. The only
common thing among those groups was really a desire to improve the living conditions of rural
communities.

The direct achievements of CLM were scarce, perhaps by the heterogeneity of their members,
but indirectly the movement had an enormous influence on public authorities to raise awareness
about the need for action in rural areas, at both state and federal levels, Hyde (1911). This
influence was manifested, in the short term, with the creation of the CLC mentioned, and later
with several actions as a result of the realization of the three main recommendations in its
Report, that were as follows: increasing knowledge about rural, based on improve statistics
and make continued detailed studies of the situation and diagnosis of rural societies, leading to a
strong impetus to agricultural and rural social sciences in the country; make an effort of
expansion and coordination of federal Cooperative Extension Services, and a growth of
the administrative apparatus and public bodies to carry out actions aimed at improving

4
rural life. Those measures, undoubtedly, prepared well the country for public policies of rural
development and rural communities development, that would begin after the Second War World.

Another achievement of CLM was the fact that the interest in rural issues crystallized in a rural
abundant literature in the first third of the past century, that is unparalleled in any other country
in the world. Sanderson (1939).

In the same period in some western European countries, particularly Germany and the
Scandinavian states, some interest for rural issues appear, but usually focused on agricultural
improvements or coming from the historicist or sociological point of view, but do not reached
specific development approaches, which crystallize in policies or actions that can be identified
as “rural development”. England is a very special case for early rural approaches that will be
commented later.

To some extent in the Soviet Union social scientists had also taken steps, at least theoretical, to
encourage Community Development approach in extension work and to differentiate rural from
agrarian. Chajanov´s transcendental work on peasant economy clearly distinguish between
Agricultural Extension and Rural Extension, the latter linked to the development of rural
society. Chajanov (1925). A detailed study on this subject can be seen in Sanchez de Puerta
(1966), where the important role of the extension services in the RCD of USA is also
masterfully analysed.

RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND RURAL COMMUNITIES DEVELOPMENT:

DECADES OF 50´s AND 60´s.

At the end of World War II poverty in rural areas of the United States was substantial and
widespread. To combat it, in 1955, President Eisenhower instructed the Secretary for
Agriculture D. Morse, the design and start of an ambitious Rural Development Program, which,
since agriculture was by far the dominant activity in areas rural, it had, despite its name, a
basically sectoral approach, because the plan was focused mainly on improving the living
standards of farmers and their families, particularly those with the lowest incomes. This name,
which probably constitutes the oldest institutionalized use of the “Rural Development" term,
was justified by the administration because it consider that actions to improve the lives of
farmers and their families amounted, actually, to an improvement of the entire rural society.
During the sixties, with the continuous fall of the relative weight of agriculture in the economy
of rural areas, the on-going rural development programs will change its goal of fighting poverty
of farmers into the revitalization of rural society as a whole. Covan (2014).

The Rural Development Program also gave a boost to the involvement of the federal
government in Rural Communities Development (RCD) activities inspired by the CLM, and,
successive laws (Rural Community Development Acts) were proclaimed by which especial
funds were authorized by Congress mainly to employment of agents through the Extension
Services of the Land Grant Universities, so that acted in the animation and organization of rural
people for development. RCD activities could cover all rural areas, particularly those located in
backward regions.

5
The difference between the Rural Communities Development (RCD) and Rural Development
(RD) in USA, which can be considered complementary policies, lies in the fact that the former
is basically focused on the animation and organization of the rural population and the creation
of certain local infrastructures, while RD programs and projects involved more productive
actions.

RCD policy was in fact the specific application to rural areas of the Communities Development
strategies, existing in the US since the last third of XIX century that initially had its full
application to the emerging small and medium cities (Farrington 1915). The DCR term was
coined by Ogden (1947) and its application to concrete programs materialize in the second half
of the next decade. US RCD policies shall apply in the sixties and seventies basically to most
backward rural areas, such as the Appalachian and Ozark (Nebraska, Arkansas, etc.), which also
benefit from the federal RD Programs. Initially, the induced development process was
characterized, as will happen shortly in the most advanced countries in Europe, by some anti-
agrarian schemes. It was necessary to build the "Non-farm rural America" as actually claimed
the politicians. This refusal of politics to agriculture as the main economic activity in rural
areas, was not new in the literature. Hoover (1948) had called “primitive” those rural areas
dependent only on agriculture, hunting, fishing and other natural resources-based activities.
However, as indicated by Irwin et al (2010), the idea that “rural” was not longer just “farm”,
that would have sounded alien to most agricultural economists in 1950, was, in the 1970's, the
dominant view among then. Indeed, this idea is, as we shall see, one of the features of Integrated
Rural Development in this decade.

At this time, and linked to this phenomenon, begins all the literature on recreational activities in
rural areas, diffuse rural industrialization, management of natural resources in rural areas, and
even the design of the first natural resources and environmental impacts valuation methods.

In the type of development that aims to induce RD and RCD actions are the inhabitants
themselves who designed and implemented, with public support, its projects, which had
basically a sectoral approach applied to spatial units of administrative nature. Although its basic
philosophy is the use and enhancement of local resources, the process was not exactly
endogenous in the modern sense of the term, as it still took place under the current fordist
productive system umbrella.

Moreover, in India after independence in 1947, the first governments strove to initiate policies
to combat poverty. As 80% of the population lived in rural areas, the development of the country
could only be done by improving their standard of living, leading to the creation and
implementation over the next decade (50s) of the Rural Community Development Program,
which was intended to increase the standard of living of rural populations, taking as the main,
but not exclusive, strategic goals to improve rural structures and increasing agricultural
productivity. Chatterjee (1957).

While RD and RCD surge in USA aiming to correct spatial imbalances created by the industrial
development model of urban concentration, which had increased the relative impoverishment of
rural areas, in India emerges as a poverty reduction instrument, with similar philosophy and
theoretical model, but with logical differential elements, especially concerning financial
resources and implementation strategies, and also, particularly, the different role for agriculture

6
to play in the process, that in the Indian case was crucial, whereas for the US, although
important, is much less relevant.

The Indian RCD Program had a quite sectoral approach, as it could not be otherwise for the
urgent priority of improving food production at the local level. Its main interesting trait was that
its strategy aimed to help people in rural areas turn into active players of their own
development. The program encouraged the association as a basic tool to achieve the joint
generating wealth and awakening of the rural population to participation in change processes
not only economic but also institutional and political, Sharma (2015). During the last years of
the colonial era, there had already been attempts to perform training and organizational
activities for development in rural areas. Gupta (1998).

The Indian government had for its program, along with other minor international donors, with
financial support and advice of the United States, which undoubtedly had a dual purpose: to
really cooperate to reduce poverty and hunger, on one hand, and expecting that the reduction of
poverty in the poorest rural areas of India was an opportunity to stem the possible spread of
communism, on the other (Sackley 2011, quoted by Sharma 2015). For reasons that, in my
opinion, have not been well studied, the program, after a decade of operation, did not leads to
the expected results, and the Indian government decided to cut the RCD program, and initiate
policies, of purely sectoral nature, aimed at encouraging the modernization of agriculture
focused more to markets than to attend the needs of local people. This new institutional and
political context was the ideal substrate for the implementation of the Green Revolution in the
late sixties. The ideas and strategies coming from the experience of RCD programs in India
were forgotten by the political class and had to be reinvented after several decades, Sharma
(2015), when were re-institutionalized in the so-called Programme of Integrated Rural
Development of the eighties.

In my opinion, this RCD Indian program was a clear precedent, in practice, of what would later
be the theoretical body of Basic Needs paradigm, born under the shelter of the International
Cooperation, and in which context, for many authors, will arise, in the seventies, the concept
and rural development policies to be applied to developing countries. (Ceña 1994)

Concern for the development of rural areas in this period was not unique to India and USA. In
Western Europe, countries like Britain and France, began to institutionalize actions aimed at
rural development. England, the cradle of the industrial revolution, did not suffer however the
process of rural exodus that was a general rule in other countries following the industrialization.
On the contrary after the Second World War the english rural population not only did not
decrease but grows sharply following the re-industrialization of the country, due to a
phenomenon of contra-urbanization, which led to the tertiarisation of rural economies and the
localization of small and medium industries in rural areas (Esparcia 1998). This important fact
avoided, to some extent, the need to consider conventional rural development actions, and the
approach to development of rural areas raises more with a focus on Rural Community
Development. with public action on rural areas, coordinated by the Rural Community Councils
(RCC) and the ACRE (Actions with Communities in Rural England).

We make here also some comments on the French case for its peculiarities, and because some
authors believe that the concept of rural development emerged in this country by 1965
(Hernández 2014). In France the sixties began with the Agricultural Guidance Laws (Lois

7
d´Orientation Agraire) of 1960 and 1962, which had as specific objective "narrow the gap
between rural and urban areas". Although they had a clear sectoral approach, performances of
various kinds were conducive to different types of predefined rural areas (Special Areas of Rural
Action, Rural Renewal Areas and Mountain Areas). Moreover, throughout the decade French
governments were running development and land management plans at natural region level.
Were integrated plans applied to natural regions of a certain size, with rather a top-down
approach, and managed by a joint body whose public part was inter-ministerial; the most known
of them was the Lower Rhone-Languedoc, managed by the so-called Mission Interministeriele
pour l'Amenagement du Littoral Languedoc-Rousillon. In the mid-sixties it begins to raise in
scientific circles the need to transfer these actions of regional development at rural district
(petite region) level, on the idea that the rural should no longer be basically agrarian (“On a
besoin d´un divorce rural-agraire”), promoting activities on basic services, rural tourism and
rural industrialization; the latter goal had just shortly crystallized in the Law to Promote
Industrialization of Rural Areas, in which context a National Commission on the subject was
created. Chavanne (1975). As far as recreation is concerned, France was one of the European
pioneers in the promotion of rural tourism and agro-tourism: In 1951 had appeared in the Low
Alps region, under the auspices of senator Emile Eubert, the Gites Ruraux (Rural Lodging)
movement that was consolidated in 1955 with the creation of its National Federation, with 146
seats, and quickly generalize. In 1969, coinciding with the period of concern and interest in the
development of rural areas mentioned above, this movement to promote rural tourism becomes
gained official recognition and receives a constant institutional support. By then it is already in
force in thousands of locations across France, and urban and foreign population was fully
familiar with its use. In this special interest for rural development in France the influence of the
utopian idea of returning to nature, arising from the movement of May 1968, cannot be ignored.
The rural world was claimed as a place of economic and social renovation and as an ideal place
for coexistence: Referring to rural world, ideologues of the movement then said "There, the
future is being built, ie the overcoming of modernity..." Hervieu (1997)

In the late sixties, and in the following decade, a distinction, in my opinion too polarized,
between the US and the European approach to rural development often appears in literature: the
former characterized more by productive projects and creation of local infrastructures, and the
latter by socio-cultural animation and training. In addition to the much greater availability of
budget in USA for actions in rural areas, this difference could be also explained because
American rural societies originally constituted, basically, from pioneer settlement, always united
in a common colonization effort, had, in general, a degree of social cohesion and local
institutionalization much higher than the European ones, particularly the Mediterranean; this
fact undoubtedly make no necessary to prioritize specific strategies to promote social cohesion
and to generate appropriate institutional innovations (Calatrava 2009) which, in addition, had
been already strengthened with the actions derived from CLM in the first half of the century,
mentioned above.

The philosophy of RCD, based on animation and organization, which was so successful in the
US, seemed also well suited for the impoverished rural areas of developing countries. So,
national governments and International Aid agencies implemented RCD programs in many
countries, with varying success. Holdccroft (1978). These programs will begin to be replaced at
the end of the sixties, by so-called Integrated Rural Development (IRD) Programs, which enjoy

8
the support strategies of the World Bank, and that will be conducted from the perspective of
Basic Needs approach and the new goals of "growth with equity".

At that point it need to be remembered the important fact that, by the end of this period, appear
the technological packages that were the basis of the so-called Green Revolution, leading to a
significant increase of agricultural yields, and this was a boost to agriculture modernization as
aim for the development of rural areas,. There is no room here to discuss the nature and the
positive and negative effects of the Green Revolution, but it´s worth to note that for many of the
so-called integrated rural development programs, particularly those in developing countries,
agricultural component came back to gain strength as the main objective of development.

THE SEVENTIES: INTEGRATED RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND BASIC NEEDS.

During the 70´s took place the beginning of a turnabout of the theories and paradigms of
development, which would affect, of course, to the practice of political actions in rural areas. A
series of events, apparently independent, started to make changes in development policies that
continue to this day. Main events are as follows:

.- At the theoretical level, it began to identify "Development" with "Increasing Welfare" which
would generate important theoretical and analytical advances on Development Theory.

.- This implies that GDP growth was no longer sufficient as a development goal, and different
new targets related with social equity and regional equilibrium had to be considered. The
idea of Growth with Equity appears.(Calatrava 2007).

.- This induces the appearance, over the entire decade, of theoretical literature that attempts to
replace GDP as an indicator of development, specifying different welfare functions: Concepts as
Net Economic Welfare (NEW), Social Income (SI), Social Profit or Social Welfare appear.
Calatrava (1993).

.- Begins to institutionalize environmental concerns, most notably from the Stockholm

Conference and the publication of the Report of the Club of Rome in 1972. At the beginning of
the decade appear in the scientific field works trying to add environmental objectives to the
Social Utility or Social Welfare functions (Saint Marc 1971, for example). At the end of the
decade, in the field of paradigms, the polish economist Ignacy Sachs, with the idea of “grow
without destroying”, propose the Eco-development paradigm, which did not have enough force
in practice, but was a relevant precedent of the Sustainable Development idea.

.- The concept of Sustainability, derived from the objective of intergenerational equity, that
years later will lead to the Sustainable Development paradigm, was first defined by Nordhaus
and Tobin (1972), and taken into account in practice, for the first time, by the Japanese Society
of Welfare Measurement on a functional form of the NEW.

.- On the other hand, as the “development” was no more only “economic growth”, policies with
sectoral approach make no sense, and so the concept of Integrated Rural Development (IRD)
emerges. The IRD was first originated to be applied to developing countries and was later
introduced in Europe during the 1980s.

9
.- The situation of poverty in the world carried Seers in 1969, to propose a new development
paradigm called "Basic Needs", in which the main objective of development was the attention to
the basic needs of the poorest. Development as poverty reduction actually was, to a large
extend, Rural Development.

.- The decade starts with the inclusion of gender issues in the theoretical corpus of development,
particularly from the work of Boserup (1970) in which the "Women in Development" (WID)
paradigm was exposed.

.- The global Crisis at the early seventies, which marks the beginning of the end of fordist
system of production and the emergence of post-fordist one, induced a general increase in
unemployment in both rural and urban areas, and, of course, the rural exodus slows. To find
ways to keep people in rural areas by creating in them employment opportunities and wealth
generation was urgently needed.

There is no room in this work to analyse thoroughly the significance of this key decade in
thinking and practice of development. It is easy to see, in the light of the above facts, its
importance on changes and future trends of the concept and policies of global and rural
development. Because of the interest that they have for the object of this work only a few brief
comments on the Integrated approach to development, and the so-called paradigm of Basic
Needs, will be made.

Integrated Rural Development (IRD): Reviewing the literature is not easy to find a precise
definition of IRD, although there is often coincidence in identifying it as "cross-cutting" or
integrator of sectoral policies in a common strategy. Other definitions point-out to the fact that
development is no longer only an economic issue (increase of GDP) but is about improving the
standard of living and welfare of rural populations involving also social, cultural and
environmental goals (in this respect it sometimes appears in the literature as Harmonic
Development. Etxezarreta-1988).

IRD can be easily identified by the following characteristics:

.- Inter-sectoral approach with territorial base.

.- Refusal to admit the role of agriculture as the only possible engine for the development of
rural territories. (Particularly in developed countries).

.- Decentralized policy scheme.

.- Growth with Equity and attention to Basic Needs in developing countries.

.- Increasing importance of local decisions (social participation).

.- Development based on the use and enhancement of local, both human and material,
resources.

With IRD really starts the most radical change in the nature and strategies of Development. The
IRD was opposed to the main previous streams of thought on rural development policies of
fordist type, based on the Expanding Capitalist Nucleus paradigm, and the strategy of
modernization with its dualistic schemes, in force in the previous two decades. Lewis (1955),

10
Fei and Ranis (1961). (See Hunt 1989 for details). In my opinion the IRD was a big step
forward in the evolution toward the paradigm of Endogenous Local Development, as, to my
view, anticipated some of its key features. In fact in 1982 the European Union began an IRD
Program in various regions as a pilot project to be later extended to other European rural areas.
but quickly this policy was exchanged for a new model of endogenous rural development
designed from 1986 and that will become operational in early the next decade.

The IRD was born under the influence of two factors: the low efficiency of sectoral policies
previously applied to rural areas and the emerging of Basic Needs (BN) paradigm, in addition
to the objective of growth with equity. The BN paradigm, first exposed by Seers (1969), and
initially supported by the ILO, for which Seers had worked, (ILO-1976, see Calatrava 2009 for
details) promotes IRD programs in developing countries under the auspices of the World Bank
and International Aid Agencies. (World Bank 1975 and 1988)

The BN paradigm, argues that development cannot be merely economic growth but a
measurable progress towards the elimination of poverty and sustained expansion of income
and employment opportunities among the poorest. The paradigm emerges as a result of growing
evidence of the increasing poverty in the world, and awareness of the effects of hunger, possibly
increased by the disclosure of the terrible consequences of currents famines in Sahelian Africa.
(Sing 1979 and Singer 1979). Supporters of this paradigm not only propose it as an issue of
social equity, but mainly because they postulate that "market growth generated by increased
demand in the mass of the population of lower income levels will have, in the long term, greater
positive effect, considering growth and structural change, than an increase in demand in the
upper income strata".Lefeber (1974). For more details see, for example, Hunt (1989).

SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE DECADE OF 80´s: LOCAL ENDOGENOUS

DEVELOPMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY.

In this decade the global development, and the rural one in its context, changes radically of
strategy, crystallizing many of the key changes initiated in the 70´s, and the fordist productive
model of economic modernization and dualistic economy, is replaced by the so-called post-
fordist one. For the Economic Theory of Development the postfordism is reflected by the Local
Endogenous Development, or simply, Endogenous Development (ED), paradigm, which is
characterized by economic diversification and specialization, diffuse industrialization,
quality of both product and process, and use and enhancement of endogenous resources of
the territories (urban or rural), the latter somehow inspired in Marshall's idea of ''industrial
districts", retrieved and updated. Godard (1987).On the other hand, the concept of
Sustainability, coined in the scientific literature at the beginning of the previous decade, began
to crystallize as a key development goal in the late eighties, and sits in the next decade.
Sustainability requires the development process to increase the welfare of society without
compromising that of future generations, which, strictly speaking means maintaining for the
future the natural capital stock

In the literature about the topic many ways to define the endogenous development can be found.
I consider appropriate, and operational for the issue we are addressing here, the left by Vazquez
(2007). For this author ED is "..a territorial approach to development, which refers to processes

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of growth and capital accumulation in a locality or a territory with a culture and institutions
that are proper, in which are based economic decisions of savings and investment.. "

To generate a ED process local society has to be organized into a system of actions over its
territory, able to produce common values and goods locally managed, and this has to be by
constantly generating new ideas and innovations, both technological and institutional, which
constitute the "local innovation system "Gaffard (1992). The local innovation systems can only
emerge in what is called "Local innovative environment" which is a concept driven by Aydalot
(1984 and 1986), and is based on the idea that SMEs cannot behave isolated as innovative
agents, and need to be part of a set or innovative network. Murdoch (2000). This local
innovative environment needs for its existence, the interaction of three elements, as follows:

.- A territorial unit with effective and / or potential resources (productive territorial

dimension).

.- Local actors (individuals, businesses, local authorities, research institutes and training or
various organizations), institutionalized through its relationships and social, commercial,
technological, administrative and political contacts.

.- An on-going collective process of reflection and acquisition of knowledge about their own
reality, to provide and determine the permanent generation of innovations

The combination of these three elements changes the territory into a local innovative
environment. This conversion is the engine of ED.

The optimal strategy of endogenous development is that which provides the best way to
generate joint action of local actors in order to give value to all the resources of a territory.
The strengthening of territorial identity is necessarily part of that strategy. Marsden (1998).
Promoting development with territorial identity means favouring everything that distinguishes a
territory and allows it to compete with absolute, or important, advantages in the markets.
Calatrava (2009) shows how it is impossible to promote an ED process without strengthening
territorial identity.

On the issue of the level of territorial competitiveness in increasingly globalized markets, but at
the same time more targeted, is a key to determine the potential of competitiveness of a territory.
The analysis of the "factors of territorial competitiveness" is a fundamental instrument to the
design of adequate programs and suitable development strategies. In general, one can
distinguish between “active factors” and “resources” (factors to disclose, exploit or organize),
which in turn can be divided according to their degree of specificity, since "absolute specific" to
"completely generic." The more specific a resource or asset is the greater is its potential for
market competitiveness. Any element of a territory can be a potential development factor: Thus,
local products, traditional modes of manufacture, landscapes, architecture, relevant historical
facts, flora, fauna, rivers and water areas, gastronomic traditions, music, festivals, rituals,
people, images, idioms, knowledge and agricultural work, etc. Calatrava (2007).

As Vazquez (2002) states the most original contribution of ED idea is to have shown the
specific relationship between territory and innovation, showing how each territory has a

12
specific potential for innovation, that must allow to carry out the economic activities in which it
is more competitive. This is crucial for modern approaches to Rural Development.

Endogenous Rural Development (ERD) and its territorial approach arises from apply to rural
territories the ED principles. OECD (1992). In any case, even within the territorial approach
(understood, initially, as not merely sectoral), the role, and with it the concept, of territory has
evolved from the territory as physical support where develop activities spatially integrated, to
the territory as a resource and a development factor of multiple dimensions in force today.

Moreover, as far as the evolution of development objectives initiated in the seventies, the
concept of Human Development, which seeks to integrate into a concept the objectives of
creating wealth, health and life expectancy and access to education and knowledge, appears at
the beginning of the nineties. Human Development was postulated by the United Nations,
UNDP (1990). Shortly after it joint the Sustainability concept, leading to a new global
paradigm: The Sustainable Human Development (SHD), which seeks to integrate economic,
social and cultural objectives with environmental ones. SHD was born from its initial approach
linked to the ethics of universalism in the recognition of the vital demands of humanity. UNDP
(1994). For some authors, the SHD is the end point of an evolution of the concept and
objectives of development, but the SHD, while retaining that name, will continue to evolve
adding new targets to the generation of wealth, health, access to knowledge and sustainability.

THE SITUATION TODAY: THE ENDOGENOUS AND SUSTAINABLE RURAL

DEVELOPMENT WITH MATURE TERRITORIAL APPROACH.

The thinking and practice of development have evolved in recent years in two directions: in
terms of objectives and in terms of strategies. Regarding objectives the currently prevailing
paradigm is the Sustainable Human Development (SHD). As far as strategies is concerned
Endogenous Development (ED), with ever more evolved territorial approach, is still prevailing.

As Rendon (2007) indicates, the concept and, above all, the philosophy of SHD is far from the
one that was in the nineties, because today is understood as the integral development of
human beings in harmony with ecosystems, implying new targets as political, economic and
social freedom, achieving gender symmetry, the enjoyment of self-respect, and the exercise of
human rights in the broadest sense, etc.

Current approaches to Rural Development in both developing and developed countries,

including the policy of the European Union based on the LEADER methodology, are,
sometimes more theoretically that in practice, consistent with the philosophy and objectives of
SHD and respond to the strategic schemes of ED. So the constant generation of technological
and institutional innovations, is therefore one of the engines of Rural Development, as it is for
any ED, although there are differential aspects to consider in the case of rural areas when
implement Endogenous and Sustainable Rural Development (ESRD) processes. Calatrava
(2009) identifies and analyses the following:

.- Much lower population densities in rural territories.

.- Specificity of the innovations required for agricultural activity at the local level.

13
.- Traditional shortcomings of rural areas compared to urban, concerning mainly service level
and institutional and organizational aspects. For ESRD institutions are major factors that
causes target variables such as income and employment. Nelson (1984)

.- Different dimension of business firms, typically much smaller in rural areas, representing
handicaps for innovation.

.- Larger surface dimension of rural territories, which contain most of the terrestrial ecosystem,
with the responsibilities that this fact implies for the adequate sustainable management of
environmental externalities and maintaining biodiversity.

.- Different importance and impact of innovations related to new information and

communication technologies (ICTs) that can break, to some extent, the traditional isolation and
remoteness of rural areas towards urban, particularly with regard to access to information and
knowledge, and access to markets.

.- Different nature and diversity of the elements that may be factors of territorial
competitiveness.

Moreover, the role of territory has undergone an evolution that is particularly relevant in the
case of rural areas. In more advanced schemes of ESRD, the territory could be, at the same time,
a factor of:

.- Local identity.

.- Wealth creation

.- Trade Competitiveness

.- Products diversification

.- Organization and social cohesion

.- Innovation

.- Quality

.- Production and management of public goods.

.- Environmental equilibrium and sustainability.

.- Generation of cultural goods and services.

.- Local consumption.

Within the current policies of ERD, the one of the European Union, which perhaps it can be
considered the most successful, and on which there is an abundant and thorough literature,
deserves a schematic final comment.

As outstanding elements of the current European RD policy from previous stages, we would
point out:

14
.- The attempt to make the agricultural sector more involved in development processes that it
was before.

.- The uniqueness of design, management and control.

.- The excellent consolidation of the territorial approach, with a pronounced multifunctional

component.

.- The methodological uniqueness and consistency of approach and strategy (LEADER).

.- The permanent attitude of constant reflection on its nature and functioning; that is dynamism
and openness to evolution.

This attitude of reflection, self-criticism and permanent correction has led to the RD policy of
the European Union to reach significant achievements that are inducing dramatic
transformations in rural territories of the Union. Although these transformations have been, in
some cases, not very significant in terms of generating wealth and raising living standards, they
have generally been more successful inducing cultural, social and institutional changes,
particularly in the most backward rural societies of the European Mediterranean countries,
where have been specially fruitful creating a social environment favourable to entrepreneurship
and innovation. Ceña and Calatrava (2006).

The LEADER approach, evolving from its origin (with LEADER I Program, in 1991), in a
constant process of experimentation and learning about itself, has, to my mind, in the current
RD European policy 2014-20, the following characteristics:

.- Endogenous local development with sustainability efforts.

.- Linked to the above, consolidated multifunctional territorial approach

.- Bottom-up strategy.

.- Wide horizontal local partnership consolidated.

.- International and transnational cooperation

.- Favouring network initiatives

.- Clear priority for funding innovative projects.

One final thought: The ESRD, properly implemented, is today one of key tools available to
humankind to tackle the major problems of poverty, social backwardness and environmental
degradation.

15
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