Rural Development and Food Security: Towards a New Agenda

This first event in a series on rural development and food security looked at the theoretical and actual case for the centrality of agriculture in the development of poor countries.

This event looked at the importance of small farms for poverty reduction, considering evidence that an agricultural focus was both efficient and equitable. However, as agricultural growth had slowed, so had employment intensity, and, perhaps as a result, so had the rate of poverty reduction.

This event discussed frameworks for social protection and the likelihood that there was something new in this approach or that it would have a significant impact in the poorest countries..

This meeting marked the launch of a new book, Food Security in sub-Saharan Africa. It highlighted how food security had been through a quiet period, but was undergoing a revival.

There has, in the past, been a kind of Washington Consensus on Agriculture. Is there now a Post-Washington Consensus? At this event, IFAD and the EU presented their strategies.

This event discussed whether trade liberalisation in the food sector was harmful to poor farmers and to poor people.

This event discussed the forthcoming World food Summit and what may change from the last one.

This event reviewed and summarised the previous meetings in the series regarding rural development.