Hot topics: Platform consensus on rural development issues of global significance in 2006

Content
Overview

The Platforms roots: A growing donor consensus on agriculture and rural development The Consensus Pyramid Topic 3: Aid modalities Topic 4: Rural finance Topic 10: Bioenergy 1. Consensus on core values and principles Topic 7: Trade agreements Topic 9: Biotechnology Topic 8: Rural-urban development 4. Hot topics: Agreement on issues of global significance Topic 1: Agriculture, environment and natural resources management linkages Topic 2: The future of smallholder agriculture Topic 6: Agriculture and health interlinkages Topic 5: Value chains and supermarketisation

2. Reflecting consensus: Knowledge sharing through joint publication

3. Donor harmonisation: Agreement on joint analysis and obstacles Moving forward

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Platform members also submitted their ideas for hot topics, which were then collated and prioritised accordingly. These are included here in order to support inter-agency knowledge-sharing and advocacy with a view to improving donor effectiveness in harmonising agricultural and rural development. No single agency holds all the knowledge about each topic, but through raising the issues together and sharing experiences and knowledge, there can be a greater collective effort to reduce rural poverty. While the JDRC focuses more on the process of agricultural and rural development delivery, Hot Topics focuses more on the content.

During a workshop to develop a Joint Donor Rural Concept (JDRC) in April 2006, members of the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development expressed the need to reach a consensus on current issues of global significance to agriculture and rural development. During the workshop, they identified a number of areas of agreement. These areas expand the Platforms mission statement and are elaborated herein under the Consensus Pyramid (Fig. 1).

Overview

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In 2000, the member states of the United Nations adopted the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These have forced donors and partners to re-examine rural development strategies at all levels and focus them more on poverty reduction. To this end, in The Millennium Development 2003, the Global Donor Platform for Goals (MDGs) Rural Development (the Platform) was created from donors growing con1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger sensus that collective action is needed 2. Achieve universal primary education with regard to rural development, in or3. Promote gender equality and emder to achieve the MDGs and improve power women the lives of millions of rural people. 4. Reduce child mortality 5. Improve maternal health The Platform is a strategic alliance of 6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other 26 donor nations and international diseases agencies that share the goal of 7. Ensure environmental sustainability fighting rural poverty. All 8. Develop a global partnership for devesupport the harmonisation lopment and alignment of policies Source: www.un.org/millenniumgoals and the implementation of strategies designed to improve agricultural and rural development in partner countries. Its members supply about 80% of total overseas development assistance (ODA) in the field of rural development. They are also committed to fighting rural poverty, ensuring food security, and enhancing economic growth in developing countries, (1) by increasing the impact that development assistance has and (2) by ensuring that investment in rural development and agriculture is more effective. To this end, the Platform focuses on three main pillars: Advocacy Giving the rural poor a voice and bringing more private and public investment to rural areas; Shared learning Communicating research and thought-leadership in rural development; and In-country facilitation Fostering harmonisation and alignment (H&A) efforts in rural development and agriculture.

The Platforms roots: A growing donor consensus on agriculture and rural development

2. Consensus with all members reflecting a common opinion expressed in joint publications 3. Agreement of donors on joint analyses and obstacles in donor harmonisation 5. Individual donor policies

1. Consensus with all members reflecting the core value of the Platform

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Ten hot topics Natural Resources Mgmt. Health interlinkages Smallholder agriculture Trade agreements 4. Agreement of members Aid modalities Rural/urban dev. on common issues of signifiRural finance Bioenergy cant global importance Value chains Biotechnology 26 individual donor policies on development issues

These areas of agreement are expressed in more detail within each part of the Consensus Pyramid (Fig. 1) and are described below, point by point. This document does not cover individual donor policies; some of these are available through links on the Platforms website.
H&A Assesment in pilot countries Global SWAp Analysis Rural Focus of PRSP JDRC The role of agriculture to achieve the MDGs The Mission statement

Having acknowledged that institutional differences do exist among the 26 donor agencies involved in the Platform, Platform members agreed on the following: The highest level of Platform consensus is the mission statement, which reflects the core values of the Platform, guides the Platforms work, and constitutes the umbrella for all of the Platforms activities; A joint solution to common problems is a global public good; There are areas in which it is not possible to harmonise policies and procedures; and There are thematic issues of global significance to rural development on which all members can agree, as well as specific topics on which they can make a joint statement. This document highlights these specifically.

The Consensus Pyramid

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Fig. 1. The Consensus Pyramid: issues identified and agreed upon by members of the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development. (the arrows indicate the dynamic nature of these topics and the content may change after periodically reviewing it). JDRC: the Platforms Joint Donor Rural Concept document; H&A: harmonisation & alignment; SWAp: sector-wide approach; PRSP: poverty reduction strategy paper.

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1. Consensus on core values and principles

Platform members agree that national and global poverty reduction targets can only be met if their policies and strategic instruments are aligned and harmonised. Some of the core values and principles that guide the Platforms work are discussed below. Improving donor-partner country cooperation and collaboration The Platform recognises the need for improved donor cooperation, collaboration and coordinated dialogue with partner countries, based on country-owned processes. This will help to avoid duplication and overlap of effort, and rivalry between agencies. Achieving this means addressing differences in donor policies, approaches, and institutional arrangements. Improving lesson-learning Recognising that it takes the efforts of more than one agency to address the needs of the rural poor, the Platform is also conscious that diverse (and sometimes competing) agendas exist and that financial resources are limited. In response, it works to improve and systematise inter-agency lesson-learning and to build consensus among rural development stakeholders on what works and what doesnt.

Increasing donor effectiveness Donors development policies and assistance processes need to be more responsive and effective if they are to support partner countries particularly in strengthening their capacity to make and implement policies. Achieving these goals is one of the major aims of the Platform.

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Recent Platform publications highlight donor consensus on (1) rural development and agricultural issues, and (2) ways in which aid delivery can be improved in light of the current trends of harmonisation and alignment. In 2005, the Platform prepared a report which highlighted and critically assessed the roles of agriculture and rural development in achieving the MDGs, particularly MDG 1 (halving hunger and poverty by 2015). In 2006, the Platform members also agreed on a Joint Donor Rural Concept (JDRC) document. The JDRC was developed with inputs from members, and outlines Platform consensus on the drivers of rural development, as well as the guiding principles (or values) and approaches that should guide rural development delivery. Platform members agreed that donors should work jointly to analyse effective donor harmonisation in rural development and agriculture, and identify obstacles to this at the country or global level. There is an urgent need to conduct such analyses, in order to develop new solutions and new ways of overcoming the obstacles identified. This will provide an important global public good, as no single institution would be able to conduct analyses like these alone. The Platform has already published an important assessment of harmonisation and alignment in its four pilot countries (Cambodia, Tanzania, Nicaragua and Burkina Faso). This is currently guiding the in-country activities of the Platform. In addition, the FAO Investment Centre, together with the UKs Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex, is studying the lessons learned from formulating and implementing sector-wide approaches (SWAps) and SWAp-like initiatives in agriculture and rural development. Another study is looking at the underlying process issues that influence the way that rural stakeholders participate in the processes of diagnosis and priority-setting involved in preparing poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs). These analyses support the Platforms objectives of improving donor effectiveness in rural development.

2. Reflecting consensus: Knowledge-sharing through joint publications 3. Donor harmonisation: Agreement on joint analysis and obstacles

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As soil is a major foundation for increasing productivity, it is a key concern of members. Soil mining, fertiliser use, policies of integrated soil fertility management, and the rehabilitation of degraded soils, were all identified as important issues. Organisations are also paying greater attention to the importance of biodiversity. Members noted that integrated approaches, which include agro-, marine and terrestrial biodiversity are needed. They also Staying linked note that communities Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO): need to take greater www.fao.org responsibility for conserConvention on Biological Diversity (CBD) www.biodiv.org: ving biodiversity. International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED): www.iied.org As fuel prices rise and International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD): supplies decrease, peak www.iisd.org oil scenarios, carbon emission ceilings and carbon trading are all gaining in importance. The links between climate change and energy security, trade, and agriculture will only grow more important over time. These issues are also linked intrinsically with unsustainable consumption patterns and the need for environmentally sustainable technologies.

The Platform is very much interested in harmonising the processes of rural development delivery. However, it also recognises the need to support Platform members and others in terms of the content of rural development delivery, as this will also help to harmonise efforts at the global level. In 2006, Platform members identified and agreed upon 10 globally important hot topics that will be relevant to their work in rural development and agriculture over the next few years particularly in fighting rural poverty and food insecurity. Each of these hot topics and the issues associated with them, are presented below. 1: Agriculture, the environment, > Topicnatural resources management linkages and Environmental issues are as diverse as they are numerous. Issues surrounding water (including tenure, scarcity, competition, climate change, security, upstream downstream effects, and the concepts of blue and green water) are crucially linked to agriculture and rural development. Members also noted the importance of natural resources management and highlighted the need to focus on sustainable land and water management, resource competition, desertification, and environmental degradation.

4. Hot topics: Agreement on issues of global significance

> Topic 2: The future of smallholder agriculture

In the ever-more globalised world of industrialised agriculture, the future of smallholder agriculture is in question. However, smallholders remain the backbone of food security and economies in many rural households and communities across the globe. Platform members note that as the mainstream economic sector drives growth, an important concern is managing risk in smallholder agriculture (e.g. through addressing vulnerability, improving incomes and food security, and through using both public and private instruments).

A twin issue of concern is social protection (including dependency, options for the landless poor, and a focus on subsistence farmers and wage labourers). This is particularly important in marginal or lagging areas (including neglected pastoral areas), and in localised production systems. Policy and investment options are needed that address the needs, priorities, and constraints of both marginal areas and marginal populations (e.g. the most vulnerable households, including the rising number of grandparent- and orphan-headed households).

According to Platform Staying linked members, the financing International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) www.ifpri.org of family farms is an FAO: www.fao.org issue that has long Smallholders, globalisation and policy analysis (FAO publication): been a challenge for www.fao.org/docrep development specialists, particularly those focusing on vulnerable households. A crucial area that also affects sustainable development is that of land tenure security (including titling, gender-related concerns, the economic effects of land-titling programmes, and land tenure within market-oriented development). Members suggested that there exists the need to identify best practices that can be applied to smallholder agriculture. A cross-regional perspective is essential when addressing this thematic area.

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Staying linked Global Donor Platform for Rural Development (GDPRD): www.donorplatform.org Aid Harmonization and Alignment: http://www.aidharmonization.org/ Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development: www.oecd.org Follow-up process to the International Conference on Financing for Development: www.un.org/esa/ffd/

> Topic 3: Aid modalities > Topic 4: Rural finance

Platform members identified rural finance as a topic of significance. Specifically, they highlighted the need to pay attention to the public financial management of agriculture. They Staying linked also suggested World Bank: www.worldbank.org there are key International Fund for Agriculture and Development (IFAD) issues that need www.ifad.org to be considered Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP): www.cgap.org in terms of the FAO Rural Finance website: management www.fao.org/ag/ags/subjects/en/ruralfinance/index.html reform of government sector institutions, rural banks, savings and credit unions. Finally, with an increased focus on publicprivate partnerships, Platform members highlighted public private investment, including institutional innovation, as an area worthy of attention.

Platform members identified the ways that aid is delivered (aid modalities) in agriculture and rural development as an area warranting attention. Many felt that it is important to better define the roles of public and private sectors as well as those of donors and partners. Members recognised the importance of staying up-to-date on donor and partner experiences of, as well as lessons learned on, programme-based approaches and sector-wide approaches (SWAps). Budget-support and multi-sectoral approaches, as well as alternatives to SWAps, are also being used more often. This is an important trend. As donors and partners promote decentralisation efforts and territorial development, it is critical to build on effective aid-delivery practices (including budget support). Finally, members felt it is important to learn about screening methods and decision trees related to aid modalities.

> Topic 6: Agriculture and health interlinkages

> Topic 5: Value chains and supermarketisation

Increasingly, health issues are being addressed through multi-sectoral approaches. This builds on the growing recognition that health issues are intrinsically linked to economic, social, political, and environmental matters.

A key concern currently is the impact that avian influenza is having on rural livelihoods, and particularly its implications for the poultry sector in different regions. Another health issue that affects farmers and rural livelihoods, as well as food security and overall health, is bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Increasingly, the links between chronic illnesses such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis are attracting widespread attention from agricultural and rural development circles. This is because there is growing recognition of the cycle of poverty that involves food insecurity, vulnerability, gender inequality, and chronic illness. This is particularly so with HIV/AIDS, where gender inequality is a key driStaying linked ving factor in the epidemic. Linked HIV/AIDS/malaria/TB agriculture/food security linkagesto these and other health issues is FAO: www.fao.org/sd/hivaids nutrition. There is now greater focus Avian influenza FAO: on food and nutrition security, partiwww.fao.org/ag/againfo/subjects/en/health/diseasescularly in light of the need for good cards/special_avian.html nutrition both to meet the MDGs Pesticides IFPRI: www.ifpri.org and IDRC: www.idrc.org and as part of the anti-retroviral the Nutrition FAO: www.fao.org and IFPRI www.ifpri.org rapy (ART) used to treat HIV/AIDS.

Increasingly, supermarket chains are being introduced into developing markets and countries and value chain integration is occurring. This is very much tied to high-value agriculture. Platform members have identified these Staying linked as important issues that donors International Trade Centre (UNCTAD/WTO): www.intracen.org should pay attention to. Recently, Institute of Development Studies: www.ids.ac.uk/ids there has been much concern nternational Centre for Tropical Agriculture: about the impact of the rapid www.ciat.cgiar.org concentration of supermarkets Publication: SOMO. Who reaps the fruit: on small-scale farmers. In Critical issues in the fresh fruit and vegetable chain response, an increasing number www.somo.nl/html/paginas/pdf/Who_reaps_the_fruit_june_ of studies has been undertaken 2006_EN.pdf on these impacts, as well as on Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC); potential ways forward. One Community of practice on Value Chains: recent study is highlighted in the www.sole-valuechains.ch links at right.

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It is impossible to miss out trade agreements when considering issues of global significance. International trade policies and agreements affect everyone, every day and everywhere, either directly or indirectly. Barely a day goes by without a news article discussing a trade dispute, or an appeal to one or another trade-related body. Trade regimes, World Trade Organization (WTO) procesStaying linked ses, Trade-Related Aspects World Trade Organization: www.wto.org of Intellectual Property TRIPS: www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/trips_e.htm Rights (TRIPS), and foreign World Intellectual Property Organisation: www.wipo.org direct investment (FDI) in Make Trade Fair (Oxfam): www.maketradefair.com agriculture and the food GRAIN: www.grain.org sector are all issues that Farmers Rights: www.grain.org Platform members highInternational Treaty on Genetic Resources for Food and lighted as issues warranAgriculture: www.fao.org ting attention. Members Eldis: www.eldis.org also noted their increasing concern over the negative impact that European and North American subsidies are having on farmers in other regions, in the context of a globalising economy. They are interested in discovering whether subsidising agriculture (for example through finance and improved market access) is justifiable and, if so, if there are principles that should guide such subsidies. Platform members noted that the right mix of protection measures and competitiveness measures needs to be found.

> Topic 7: Trade agreements

Throughout the process of developing the JDRC paper, Platform members repeatedly revisited the question of what does rural actually mean? Mirroring this concern during the identification of these hot topics Platform members prioritised ruralurban development linkages as a globally significant issue. They also identified the linked pattern of rural-to-urban migration and growing urban poverty as an issue that must be addressed. Increasingly, issues of global significance also include peri-urban agriculture, rurbanisation (the growing blurring of rural and urban lines), and urban/ Staying linked industrial sprawl and agri City Farmer; Urban Agriculture Notes: www.cityfarmer.org/ culture; members included FAO; Food for the cities: www.fao.org/FCIT/index.asp these issues in the prioriti FAO; Population: www.fao.org/SD/pe3_en.htm sation exercise. Land use crosses all of these issues (and many of the other thematic areas considered as well). Finally, Platform members noted that ruralurban linkages need to be strengthened to benefit the poor.

> Topic 8: Rural-urban development

> Topic 9: Biotechnology > Topic 10: Bioenergy

There are clear links between bioenergy and thematic areas such as the environment and trade. However, Platform members raised a number of issues that merit bioenergy being considered as a separate hot topic in itself. They suggested that the implications of biofuel use for rural development Staying linked are a critical issue, FAO: Environment www.fao.org/SD/ENdef_en.htm as is the use of IEA Bioenergy: www.ieabioenergy.com/ biomass (produced Practical Action; Energy: www.itdg.org/?id=energy through agriculture and forestry) for energy. Renewable energy, decentralised rural energy supply, competition between bioenergy crops and food crops, and the impacts of bioenergy use on the environment are all thematic areas that resonate with Platform members. Underlying many of these areas are the implications that bioenergy has for food security. Finally, as members highlighted the future of smallholder farmers as a priority issue under other topics, it is crucial to identify smallholder options for producing and using bioenergy, as well as energy-use options for them in general.

Platform members Staying linked rightfully identified FAO Biotechnology website: www.fao.org/BIOTECH/index.asp biotechnology as Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety: www.biodiv.org/biosafety/default.aspx an issue of global CGIAR and Agricultural Biotechnology: www.cgiar.org/impact/ importance. agribiotech.html Biotechnology is GRAIN: www.grain.org important to all Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration: countries and to www.etcgroup.org/about.asp all people, as it has the potential to greatly affect food security and rural livelihoods. The debates on biotechnology are often polarised and lively. Platform members identified specifically the issues surrounding living modified organisms, genetically modified organisms, and the development of transgenic materials. They also noted the need to increase poor peoples access to biotechnology.

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Moving forward

By sharing knowledge about the issues in agriculture and rural development that are globally significant, donors and partners alike can ensure that development assistance is more effective. Better donor understanding of these issues, built on the results of analyses carried out jointly by different donors, will support their efforts to encourage more investment in agriculture and rural development. Through the Platform, members have identified a number of areas of consensus, including the hot topics of global significance in 2006. Such a consensus, and a focus on partner country priorities, will help donors to deliver more effective agricultural and rural development in the context of harmonisation and alignment.

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Prepared by Catherine L. M. Hill (Consultant) from Platform Member and Associate Member inputs to a workshop held in Brussels in April 2006 on the Joint Donor Rural Concept as well as postworkshop submissions on ten hot topics of global significance by Platform Members. Published by Global Donor Platform for Rural Development, c/o Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) Adenauerallee 139-141, 53113 Bonn, Germany Photos fairtrade media, Bonn, Germany November 2006 Layout Iris Christmann, Wiesbaden, Germany Printed by W.B. Druckerei, Hochheim, Germany Paper Printed on special 9Lives photo paper (PaperLinx), certified according to FSC

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www.donorplatform.org
Contact: Secretariat of the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development, c/o Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) Adenauerallee 139-141, 53113 Bonn, Germany Phone: +49 228 535 3276 and 3699 Fax: +49 228 535 103276 Email: secretariat@donorplatform.org Website: www.donorplatform.org Publication date: November 2006