Promoting integrated and inclusive rural-urban dynamics and food systems
This policy brief (PDF) by International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) provides recommendations for creating synergies between different settlement types, leveraging rural-urban linkages, providing avenues for vulnerable groups to advocate for their interests, and supporting small-scale actors in food systems. One of the key messages is that greater attention to the specificities, complexities and implications of current urbanization processes is needed, in particular the role of growing towns and small-scale food systems actors therein. Coherence and integration of policy processes that cut across rural and urban areas is imperative. Additionally, the socio-economic benefits of working with small-scale food systems actors are often unrecognized and unrealized, but offer significant potential for promoting food security and nutrition in the context of emerging transitions. Integrated approaches – focusing on the needs of the most vulnerable people in rural and urban areas – will be essential to foster balanced and inclusive rural-urban transformations. Balanced, territorial and people-centred approaches that support the roles of local small-scale actors and the inclusion of vulnerable groups offer a viable model of working in the evolving contexts. Policy and investment frameworks must respond to the emerging complexities and the specific scenarios facing people in all settlement types along the rural-urban continuum.