The CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) will convene a pre-conference workshop on the topic of Rural Transformation in the 21st Century: The Challenges of Low-Income, Late-Transforming Countries as part of the next International Conference of Agricultural Economists (July 28 - August 2, 2018, Vancouver, BC, Canada). The workshop will be held on July 28.
Summary of the event with links to presentations and recordings available here
Rural Transformation refers to the change (usually as part of an economy-wide process of structural transformation) of rural areas that are poor and largely based on agriculture to more diversified and prosperous ones. Countries undergoing the process in the 21st century face a different context than those that did so in the 19th or 20th centuries. Competition from foreign suppliers is tough, even in local markets in low income countries. Jobs for young people are scarce. Late-transformers lag, rather than lead, global technical innovation. Migration is risky. The challenges of late transformation are offset, at least partially, by benefits; to leap-frog technologies, to sell into distant markets, to use ICT for productive and social purposes, to deploy a more educated rural population, and to access flows of remittances. Researchers accordingly ask what role agriculture and food systems play in late-transforming countries, and what interventions can facilitate shared growth, better nutrition, and sound natural resource management as economies diversify.
This event is convened by PIM as the Second Annual Social Science Conference of CGIAR.
The following papers were selected for the workshop’s four sessions through a review of abstracts submitted in an open competitive call:
Session 1. New insights into 21st century rural transformation; what does it look like in different regions?
Session 2. Implications of 21st century rural transformation for markets and value chains
Session 3. Linkage between rural transformation, climate change, and natural resource management (NRM)
Session 4. What about the slow transformers?