What are the various types of approaches to rural development?
Rural development and empowerment are some of the important sustainable development goals by the United Nations. The sustainable development goals majorly focus on protecting and enhancing the natural diversity of the planet, as preserving our mother nature will help the human species to create a better and sustainable world for future generations. Natural diversity that means natural resources such as agriculture and forests are extensively part of rural areas. Agriculture is the primary occupation of the two-third population of the rural areas on which their livelihoods are dependent. The rate and quality of agriculture are degrading day by day, and it is affecting the living of the people in human areas as they are still deprived of sustainable living, infrastructure, health, and sanitation as they are living below the poverty line.
At the social ripples, which is an initiative towards sustainable development, they advocate that sustainable rural development and empowerment fosters improving the quality of life in rural areas that covers the following components of the rural development.
• Environmental conditions
• Ecological settings
• Technology
• Self-reliance
• Infrastructure
• Law and order
• Education and training
• Distributive justice
Hence, the concept of rural development and empowerment refers to initiative and measures taken for enhancing the quality of life and financial well-being of people in rural areas and significantly improve the village economy. The above components are the areas of rural development and empowerment.
Approaches to rural development
There are various experimental rural development and empowerment approaches used by the government of India. The various approaches are focused to accelerate the growth and development of rural communities. First, the area-wise development and needs of rural development are considered and according to them. Secondly, available natural resources present in that rural areas measures towards the development are planned. Rural development in the history of India is a primary goal of government. It took planning and a perfect approach to attain various goals and objectives of sustainable development. The approaches of rural development have been stated in the five years plan and are being stated as:
• The first five-year plan was the methodological approach of the community development program.
• The second five-year plan was based on the sectorial growth that aimed at achieving economic growth and development by promoting industrialization.
• The third five-year plan was all around agricultural development and was promoted with the help of programs such as intensive agricultural area development program, high yield varieties program
• And so on
These were some of the programs and approaches that were experimented and the government of India is doing well. To achieve rural development and empowerment, it is important to make maximum use of human and material resources. Hence, the approaches to rural development can be comprehensively stated as follows:
Endogenous development-
This approach to rural development and empowerment focuses on local development by considering the areas of development that include human rights advocacy, human development, and qualitative progress of human standards, based on conservation of the environment and sustainable social development. In addition to promoting ways of employment and conservation of natural resources, the endogenous development approach also focuses on ways to promote connection and co-operation between the cities and local economies that will lead to a rise in the quality of economic and social well-being of the rural population.
Participatory development-
The development of a nation refers to the development of each human and natural resources. In the case of rural development and empowerment, the social ripples advocate that the individuals of the rural areas need to recognize that they are the implementers of the developmental programs. The idea of the participatory development approach promotes that when the individuals will participate actively in the development process then only it will be productive. Also, it says that local independence and sustainable development are improved by the effective use of local natural resources.
At the social ripples, Dr. Lopamudra Priyadarshini with her mission towards sustainable development believes that rural development and empowerment refer to come up development activities by effective use of natural resources, and if the availability of natural resources is limited, then they should be used adequately and strategically so that they can be used sustainably by the future generations.
