Global Village Council Initiates Bottom-Up Approach to Development

Great strides have been made in the rising awareness of the need for aid in the least developed states over the past year. The enormous success of the Live 8 concert, which pressured G-8 leaders at the Gleneagles conference to embrace debt cancellation, has led to a new round in IMF negotiations for similarly afflicted debtor states. Foreign aid has also reached new levels, marking a significant change in global attitudes in assisting struggling states.

While aid has enabled nations to finance much-needed public programs, such as education and health care, global advocates warn that a dangerous divide is being solidified – that between rural and urban. “We are deeply concerned that foreign aid contributions by over 20 rich countries and other development agencies, including the World Bank, private and corporate funders are not reaching desperate villages,” said Goodluck Diigbo, Executive Director of the Foundation of the Global Village Congress. “The failure stems in large part from a misconception that the main poverty problem has moved from the countryside to the burgeoning megacities of the developing world,” said Fawzi Hamad Al-Sultan, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

The global rural population constitutes the overwhelming majority of those suffering from extreme poverty and hunger. IFAD estimates, in its Rural Poverty Report, that nearly 75% of those suffering from malnutrition and ill health, the clearest indicators of extreme poverty, reside in rural communities. These 900 million individuals must rely on agriculture for subsistence, which is rarely sufficient to meet basic needs because of the soil quality and the limited plot sizes. Yet, least developed countries, which contain 86% of the poorest individuals, are currently only receiving 63% of the foreign aid dispensed by wealthier nations.

The Global Village Congress, founded this year by Mr. Diigbo, hopes to reverse the trend of increasing urban funding at the expense of the poor. Working in conjunction with the Partnership for Indigenous Peoples Environment, the GVC is working to reinstate a bottom-up development model, where the needs of small villages are met on a case-by-case basis. “[GVC] has the power to make the task of rural transformation a shared responsibility between the government and local peoples,” said Ronald H. Field, Chair of the United States National Inter-Faith Coalition of the Ageing. By attracting more donors to local village needs, and enabling villagers to take a more active approach in determining how the funds are utilized, GVC is confident that rural economic sustainability can be achieved. Mr. Diigbo has initiated the creation of a Dataset Development Mechanism Bank, which integrates data collected from villagers regarding which development projects would be most beneficial to the region.

By directly involving the villagers in this new development model, Mr. Diigbo hopes to meet a greater degree of success than more traditional, top-down approaches. Empowering locals to determine their own economic paths enables individuals to rely less on the government and more on their neighbors. Also, by “owning” these particular projects, villagers are more likely to want these projects to succeed. GVC also encourages individual villages to work in conjunction with other villages, in an effort to encourage cooperation and peace. The UN recently heralded this organization at its headquarters on September 28, to coincide with the celebration of GVC’s declaration of “World Village Day.”

The success of rural regions is a critical component of overall economic growth. World Bank statistics clearly indicate that development in non-agricultural sectors, such as industry and construction, sustained a substantial boost when agricultural markets performed well. As a result of this increase, employment figures rose while poverty levels fell. The growth in farmers’ income will also rejuvenate the economy, which will further propel developing economies. Also, the additional availability of food insulates rural societies from the shock associated with unpredictable weather changes and natural disasters.