Moscow: To meet growing demand for employment in rural areas and improve food security, countries in Eurasia need to strengthen the role of the private sector in their economies by accelerating reforms, improving their institutional frameworks, and exploring opportunities for regional integration, according to the 2019 Global Food Policy Report (GFPR) launched today by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) at the 4th Annual International Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition in Eurasia in Moscow.
“If the governments in the region can create an enabling environment for regional integration, trade, and private sector development, the payoff will not only be economic development but also a more healthy, well-nourished, and competitive population,” said Kamiljon Akramov, senior research fellow, IFPRI.
The event was jointly organized by the Eurasian Center for Food Security (ECFS) at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, the World Bank and IFPRI, with support from the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation and contributions from two CGIAR research programs: Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) and Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH).
The report notes that Central Asian countries largely weathered the effects of external factors, including slowed economic growth in Russia and China. The growth in export earnings, remittance flows, and investment – while limited – had positive impacts on economic activity and food security in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. “These countries have substantial comparative advantages in several agricultural and food products, and investments in infrastructure and sanitary and phytosanitary standards will help them to establish competitive value chains and further increase their export earnings,” said Evgeny Tsvetnov, senior researcher, ECFS at the Lomonosov Moscow State University.
The GFPR also comments on worldwide trends— rural areas continue to be in a state of crisis in many parts of the world, marked by deepening cycle of hunger and malnutrition, persistent poverty, limited economic opportunities, and environmental degradation, threatening to slow the progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals, global climate targets, and improved food and nutrition security.
Rural areas remain underserved compared to urban areas and face a wide array of challenges across the globe: rural areas struggle with environmental crisis in China; severe agrarian crisis in India, and acute shortage of jobs for the growing youth populations in Africa. To overcome these challenges, the report calls for rural revitalization, highlighting policies, institutions, and investments that can transform rural areas into vibrant and healthy places to live, work and raise families.
“Revitalizing rural areas can stimulate economic growth and begin to address the crises in developing countries, and also tackle challenges holding back achievement of the SDGs and climate goals by 2030,” said Shenggen Fan, director general, IFPRI. “Rural revitalization is timely, achievable, and, most important, critical to ending hunger and malnutrition in just over a decade,” said Fan.
More than one-half of the population in Central Asia resides in rural areas, including a majority of the poor. Projections suggest that despite growing urbanization, a considerable share of the region’s population will continue to live in rural areas. “The persistent productivity gaps between agriculture and non-agriculture sectors are reflected in the higher levels of poverty and malnutrition in rural areas in comparison with urban areas,” added Akramov.
To ensure that all can participate and benefit from growth and transformation of rural areas, the report recommends investing efforts in reducing gender disparities. “These countries also should support women’s participation in the formal workforce, given that women’s labor participation rates remain relatively low in the region,” said Akramov.
In agriculture, reforms to liberalize land tenure policies and create an enabling environment for collective management of common-pool resources are needed to promote the expansion of labor-intensive and high-value sectors such as horticulture. In this regard, “it is important to have public support for applied research that helps address problems of land degradation and helps develop innovative methods of improving soil fertility and productivity of agricultural plants in the Eurasian region,” said Sergey Shoba, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and director, ECFS at the Lomonosov Moscow State University. “Otherwise, the lack of productive soils may become the essential limiting factor in ensuring food and nutrition security in the future for many countries in Eurasia,” concluded Shoba.
The report emphasizes that rural areas could become premiere hubs of innovations in just under a decade. It recommends revitalizing rural areas with a focus on five building blocks: creating farm and non-farm rural employment opportunities; achieving gender equality; addressing environmental challenges; improving access to energy; and investing in good governance.
Achieving these policy goals require investments in good governance. The report identifies three aspects of governance critical for rural revitalization: appropriate and predictable laws and regulations; effective policy implementation and enforcement; and accountability of those in positions of power and authority.
“We are delighted to be working with ECFS in developing up-to-date research and policy toolkits that support policy practitioners in the Eurasian region in designing informed policies for food security and nutrition. As most poor and food insecure live in rural areas, GFPR presents a starting point for more in-depth policy work in our target countries,” said Artavazd Hakobyan, senior agricultural economist, the World Bank.
For more information on the report, visit: http://gfpr.ifpri.info/
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The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) seeks sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty. IFPRI was established in 1975 to identify and analyze alternative national and international strategies and policies for meeting the food needs of the developing world, with particular emphasis on low-income countries and on the poorer groups in those countries. www.ifpri.org