ABSTRACT
The title of the conference suggests that our deliberation is confined to the linkage between agrarian reform and rural development both in principle and in practice. I begin, therefore, with an attempt to explain this connection before I examine the lessons learnt from past experience. In ordinary parlance and policy design, the connotation of ‘rural development’ (RD) is broader and more ambiguous than land reform/agrarian reform (LR). Thus, it is viewed differently by government programmers, donor countries, international assistance agents and development analysts. The difficulty lies in RD being a long-term dynamic process and having more constituents than agrarian reform. However, I argue that its aims could be considerably realized in a shorter period of time if started after, or accompanied by, a more equal distribution of cultivable land. Often rural development has meant such ‘things’ as schools, clinics, roads,
electricity, youth clubs, purified drinking water, small industries, provision of credit, fertilizers, improved seeds either directly or through cooperatives, etc. Thus the confusion seems to lie in the sense in which the word ‘development’ is used. Though necessary, these material things, like income, are only means or instruments to realize the main objectives of rural people’s lives, i.e. increasing their capabilities (literacy, nutrition, lower infant mortality, longer life expectancy, self-respect and so forth).1 Where extensive land redistribution, rent reduction and provision of complementary production inputs are instituted, household food security and motivation for active participation in local community improvement speed up the process of rural development, as took place, for example in South Korea (1945-55) and Egypt (1952-65). I have argued, elsewhere, that both LR and RD coalesce in rapidly raising the standard of living in rural areas, in general, and reduction of absolute poverty, in particular, as the major goal of RD including LR.2
