Rural Poverty Reduction
Tailored policies against poverty and hunger, with a focus on rural areas
In recent years, the extremely poor have become more rural. While rural people represent 48 percent of the world’s population, they comprise 80 percent of the extreme poor. More than ever, countries must focus on rural areas to eradicate poverty.
FAO supports countries in focusing their sectoral policies on the rural poor to ensure food security and nutrition, promote economic inclusion, foster environmentally sustainable livelihoods, and increase resilience against risks and shocks.
Key messages
The desired transformation is key to improving access to healthy diets and an equitable future, adapting to and mitigating the impacts of the climate crisis, and promoting peaceful and inclusive societies. Targeted and coordinated action across sectors and actors at all levels is required.
Key policy approaches to end poverty also include boosting social policies, promoting coherence between agriculture and social protection; strengthening the capacity of producer organizations and rural institutions; and increasing investment in rural infrastructure, research and services to create new income-generating opportunities in the off-farm sector for the rural poor.
Mitigating and adapting to climate change, as well as a renewed effort to achieve healthier, more sustainable and more equitable agrifood systems will be challenging, particularly for small-scale producers and rural populations. Therefore, it is imperative that both agendas place their main contributors at the center: the rural poor, as well as vulnerable populations such as family farmers, small-scale fishers, forest dwellers, pastoralists, women, youth, and Indigenous Peoples will need to be the protagonists of any needed change to ensure that we leave no one behind.
It is important to develop governance arrangements that can enable the design, implementation and monitoring of coordinated multisectoral policies to eradicate rural poverty. These governance arrangements should be transparent and inclusive, in particular by integrating communities’ rights and building on the fundamental role of rural organizations in delivering services, articulating demands, and representing rural people in policy dialogue and development processes.
Featured resources
Farmer income and decoupled direct payments in North Macedonia. FAO Agricultural Development Economics Policy Brief 64
2023
This policy brief summarizes the key findings and policy recommendations of the corresponding working paper Decoupling direct payments in North Macedonia...
Inversión pública productiva en la agricultura para la recuperación económica con bienestar rural: un análisis de escenarios prospectivos para Paraguay
2022
Paraguay mostró un crecimiento económico importante entre el 2010 y el 2019, a pesar de cierta contracción en el 2019, en el cual la agricultura contribuyó...
Rural poverty analysis: From measuring poverty to profiling and targeting the poor in rural areas
2021
This guide was developed to strengthen the Organization’s work on rural poverty reduction and inclusivity over the coming years. It provides key information...
Productive public investment in agriculture for economic recovery with rural well-being: an analysis of prospective scenarios for Mexico
2021
Mexico's gross domestic product (GDP) contracted unprecedentedly as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. While the primary sector has relatively been the...
Economic inclusion and social protection to reduce poverty. Rural women’s economic empowerment
2021
This action sheet is part of a series of action sheets developed under the seven key priority areas of the FAO COVID-19 Response and Recovery program,...
Thinking ahead: Drought resilience and COVID-19
2021
COVID-19 is a defining moment for strengthening drought resilience of society and managing ecosystems more sustainably. Both recent and historical experiences...
Complete series of five free courses on rural poverty reduction
2021
The complete series of five free courses on rural poverty reduction is now available on FAO’s e-learning Academy as a global public good. The e-learning...
Economic inclusion and social protection to reduce poverty. Rural social protection
2021
This action sheet is part of a series of action sheets developed under the seven key priority areas of the FAO COVID-19 Response and Recovery programme,...
Youth-to-youth mentorship approach in agripreneurship development. Lessons learned from the Youth Inspiring Youth in Agriculture (YIYA) initiative in Uganda
2021
This brief presents the youth-to-youth mentorship experience promoted by the Youth Inspiring Youth in Agriculture (YIYA) Initiative in Uganda in 2017....
Rwanda Food and Agriculture Policy Monitoring Review 2020. Policy report
2020
Rwanda’s agricultural sector accounts for about 29 percent of GDP and employs about 72 percent of the population that is economically active. It is...
Addressing inequality in times of COVID-19
2020
The initial direct impact of COVID-19 is on health, in terms of morbidity and mortality, with quickly overburdened health care services. The containment...
COVID-19 and rural poverty: Supporting and protecting the rural poor in times of pandemic
2020
While the immediate impact of COVID19 in most parts of the world has been primarily urban, the economic impact of COVID19 spread quickly to rural areas....
Analysis of alternative routes of public investment in agriculture and their impact on economic growth and rural poverty reduction in Nicaragua
2020
In the face of the economic downturn that Nicaragua experienced in 2018 and the need for a recovery, the study provides a comparative analysis of how...
Reducing rural poverty - policies and approaches
2020
This fact sheet describes the second course in a series of e-learning courses on Rural Poverty Reduction. It considers the development of approaches...
Situación rural de América Latina y el Caribe con 2 grados de calentamiento. 2030 Alimentación, agricultura y desarrollo rural en América Latina y el Caribe. Documento nº 10
2019
The document presents a description of the structure of the rural environment, demography, the supply of goods and services, the main inequalities,...
Promoting alternatives to migration for rural youth in Ethiopia and Tunisia
2019
Poverty, food insecurity and a lack of employment opportunities drive many young men and women around the world to search for jobs elsewhere. In Africa,...
Rural transformation. Looking towards the future of Latin America and the Caribbean. 2030 Food, agriculture and rural development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Document 1
2019
The document presents a description of the structure of the rural environment, demography, the supply of goods and services, the main inequalities,...
Infraestructura rural mínima para prosperar. 2030 Alimentación, agricultura y desarrollo rural en América Latina y el Caribe. Documento nº 21
2019
The document presents a description of the structure of the rural environment, demography, the supply of goods and services, the main inequalities,...
An inclusive rural transformation in progress, but with unequal pace and characteristics across countries. 2030 Food, agriculture and rural development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Document 6
2019
The document presents a description of the structure of the rural environment, demography, the supply of goods and services, the main inequalities,...
Strengthening rural institutions and empowering people to reduce poverty and inequalities
2018
This brochure provides an overview of FAO's work on Rural Institutions, Services and Empowerment, notably in regard to the challenges and ways forward...
FAO Policy Series: Rural Poverty Reduction
04/04/2017
Seventy-five percent of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas. The agricultural sector, therefore has a key role to play in poverty reduction...
Sustainable Development Goals
Our work on this theme primarily contributes to:
