L’urbanisation est souvent considérée comme ayant des effets néfastes sur le développement rural. En fait, c’est tout le contraire. Les espaces ruraux et urbains, les populations et les entreprises sont étroitement liés et on peut dire avec certitude qu’il n’y a pas de développement rural sans développement urbain et inversement.
L'urbanisation et la transformation économique, c'est-àdire la croissance des secteurs non agricoles, industriels et tertiaires, offrent de nombreuses possibilités d'améliorer les conditions d'existence des pauvres. Le défi essentiel consiste à s'assurer que la population bénéficie plus d'un milieu offrant un cadre favorable à l'évolution des moyens de subsistance et des systèmes économiques. Mais trop souvent, on constate une incapacité à reconnaître et gérer la transition urbaine, ce qui se traduit par une urbanisation permanente de la pauvreté, de la vulnérabilité et de l'exclusion.
Les villes tirent profit de la prospérité de l'agriculture
La relation entre la ville et les zones rurales s'est radicalement transformée au cours des dernières années. Une délimitation franche n'est plus guère possible aujourd'hui et c'est le continuum des zones à vocation agricole, des banlieues, des zones d'habitat spontané et des centres urbains qui modèle le paysage. Mais les pays et la coopération au développement disposent-ils des instruments nécessaires pour promouvoir un développement dynamique et équilibré entre la ville et le milieu rural et pour entrouvrir des perspectives aux populations qui y vivent ?
The early development strategies of both China and India were urban- and industry-focused, discounting the importance of rural development. Despite sweeping reforms in both countries, the urban bias and subsequent spatial disparities still exist today. In order to reduce poverty and increase growth, developing countries need to correct these spatial disparities through a set of policies that take advantage of the synergies and linkages between rural and urban areas.
Dar es Salaam is one of the fastest growing cities in sub-Saharan Africa. In its rapidly expanding peri-urban fringe poor migrants from distant rural areas settle down on plots they can afford that provide access to urban markets. They engage in commercial poultry farming establishing sustainable livelihoods and improving food security in the city.
Despite ambitious desertification control programmes, the area of desertified land has expanded continuously since the establishment of the People's Republic of China, with increasingly serious impacts on important industrial and settlement areas. Only in the new millennium is a reversal of this trend in sight.
Two images have dominated the northern media in recent months.The first is of desolation in remote, rural areas in Africa affected by drought, conflict or famine, such as in Somalia, northern Kenya or Darfur, Sudan. The second is a different kind of desolation - that of urban squalor as portrayed in the film «The Constant Gardener». Nairobi's Kibera, which provides a backdrop for the film, is a bustling shantytown with a population of ca.
Urbanisation and economic transformation - the growth of non-farm, industrial and service sectors - offer many opportunities for improvements in poor people's lives.The crucial challenge is to ensure that places work better for people, providing an enabling and supporting environment for changing livelihoods and economies. But all too often there is a failure to recognise and manage the urban transition, resulting in the continuing urbanisation of poverty, vulnerability and exclusion.
Although «urban» and «rural» development are often considered as in opposition to each other and seen as competing with each other for investment and support, many urban centres owe much of their economic base to agriculture. Ironically, one of the best tests of whether rural development is working is whether local urban centres are booming - as increasing agricultural output is served by markets and producer services there, and as real increases in income for a wide range of rural households are reflected in increased demand for goods and services provided by urban-based enterprises.
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