20th March 2008
Making Agriculture Trade Work for Rural Development: Elements for a development-oriented agenda in the context of WTO negotiations
The quintessential feature of developing countries is the large rural sector which is home to the most desperately poor. The rural people are in the majority and to them rural development is a matter of survival. Rural development deals with productive and welfare concerns. It embraces agriculture as well as non-farm investment activities in the rural space, including natural resource management, rural transport, water and sanitation, telecommunications, education, health and other social services. It is the totality of the economic, social, cultural as well as physical and environmental wellbeing of the rural people.
The WTO AoA is not averse to certain non-trade issues. Indeed, the agreement provides some considerable latitude for governments to pursue important non-trade concerns such as rural development, food security, the environment, structural adjustment measures and poverty alleviation. Article 20 specifically accepts that negotiations have to take non-trade concerns into account.