ABSTRACT
Has integrated rural development and, with it, regional rural development failed as an approach or been, at best, an episode in the constantly changing pattern of development theory paradigms and development concepts? Since the mid-1980s, if not earlier, IRD has been increasingly regarded as a failure and attracted the same criticism as Community Development before it: it promises much, but delivers little. Besides radical proponents of a new agricultural growth strategy, it is a group of reform-minded critics who, while acknowledging the need for direct action to benefit the rural poor, disapprove of integrated approaches because their structural effectiveness has been extremely disappointing.
