Rural Policy Lessons from OECD Countries

Rural policy has seen significant shifts in the past two decades. Governance efforts have focused on improving central coordination, creating more flexible arrangements for central support, forming new institutional arrangements at local and regional levels, and building local capacity through leadership and community development programs. Policies objectives and instruments have focused on improving the competitiveness of rural areas, investing in human and social capital, diversifying economic activities, enhancing business assistance, commercializing natural and cultural amenities, finding market niches for local products, providing public services, and incorporating program evaluation procedures. Thus, rural policy has now gone beyond agricultural policy in many countries, offering new trajectories of development for rural areas. Yet these refinements and innovations tend to be recent and limited in scope. Additional work will be necessary to ascertain their effectiveness, durability, and transferability.