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Rural households in the developing world are involved in a variety of economic activities, as part of complex livelihood strategies.  Agriculture, while remaining important, is not the sole nor, in some cases, necessarily the principal activity of the poor.

The Rural Income Generating Activities (RIGA) project aims at promoting the understanding of the role of such activities for poverty reduction and development through:

• An innovative database on sources of income, with 27 surveys covering 16 countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.

• Research papers investigating key policy research issues based on the RIGA data.

Each dataset in the RIGA database can be easily linked with the other RIGA datasets, as well as with its corresponding source data.  The public release of the RIGA database thus aims to promote the use of our cross-country comparable income indicators to inform further policy-relevant analyses. Click here to access the data.

To date work with the RIGA database has allowed researchers to undertake analyses on subjects such as:

• Patterns of rural income diversification
• Assets, activities and rural income generation
• The impact of high food prices on urban and rural households
• Rural wage employment
• Urban agriculture
• Gender and rural employment
• Livestock for poverty alleviation
• Agricultural policy modelling

The RIGA project is a collaborative effort of FAO, the World Bank and American University.