Income, taux de couverture sanitaire

There are a few ways to measure rural development:

1) the population way: increases in size/density (urbanization).

2) the economic way: increasing differentiation/specialization of goods/services.

3) the sociocultural way: this has to do with social networks within and between the rural place, balancing bridging and bonding networks; this will ideally promote pluralism (multiple voices have input) and equality (no groups are marginalized).

Dear Shun,

In my opinion, we should focus on the main resources (labour pool, water, soil, cash, market...), main stakeholders and their interactions. However, there are several evaluation frames which may guide us in such decision, (for instance if we consider sustainability as human development, "López-Ridaura, S., Masera, O., Astier, M., 2002. Evaluating the sustainability of complex socio-environmental systems . the MESMIS framework. Ecological Indicators 35, 135–148")

It depends in which kind of society is embedded...if it is a rural area in a developed or developing country

In my opinion one of the most important indicators is the structure of the social network and the quality of nodes. The values and ethics behind its social facts.

I would start with the vulnerability index.

In addition, look at the connectivity and how it changes over time - roads to larger towns? Availability of public transport? Frequency? Capacity? Import/export? ...?

I would consider variables like Education, access to rural infrastructure, income, access to health care facilities, etc.

La présence de services de proximité (épiderie, poste d'esence) ainsi que la structure d'âge de la population (ou indice de vieillissement) me semblent de bon indicateurs de développement pour les peites communautés locales qui se retrouvent en milieu rural.

You may want to consider the sustainable livlihoods framework. Have you seen it before?

Depending on how you define the constituent elements of development, I'd suggest technology uptake or adaption in the pursuit of satisfying basic needs or task accomplishment in a particular life activity. Progress or modernization, development, can be defined in terms of becoming more efficient at doing the things designed to maintain one's existence in the present and ensure the projection of one's gene pool into the future.

I shall go for the three most important variables: the community , the economy, and the environment. You choose the details.

As Daniel Gomez noted, is not a universal framework. Especially when dealing with as few variables as you point: good education, life expectancy and higher income can be simply indicators of a conmuterized rural space, or a californication victim.

If we understand the general development of society, the progress line, a rural area have a good development framework if is properly inserted in the global city (don't be confused with "global cities" by Sassen). In this sense they are already signed some key elements: telematics connectivity, physical accessibility, the structure of the external network of relationships, the structure of materialist/postmaterialist values, etc.. In short, discuss rural development is meaningless. The rural is precisely what today is out of the global city. I suggest reading this (pp. 21-37), which can bring you some ideas (includes Spanish and English version).

http://www.eweb.unex.es/eweb/sociolog/BAIGORRI/cuaderno1.pdf

Apologies for my pitiful english

the foremost aspect that one needs to see whether a rural houshehold is well off or not is whether the farmers are able cover the cost of cultivation. This is basically because only if he gets assured income from crop cultivation he can think of sowing the next season.

I would suggest the following variables:

- size of the community (as a resource)

- leadership (and institutions)

- infrastructure (already mentioned) and

- income / occupation / size of arable land

I think if you can visit FAO SEAGA Field and macro level hand book you will get answer about what to consider when assessing community development. Just visit it.

On the soft side, I would consider community empowerment and sustainability. Whether community actively participated in the development process, issues about capacity building, community structures for facilitating development, issues about gender and equity and so on.

Besides enviroment and economy, be sure you consider also the social or community land use and the community interaction

The five capitals used in the sustainable livelihood framework is very ideal

I think your question is good, but you are asking this question to the wrong group of people. Why don't you try to ask this question, through an open interview, to the people that actually live there. That way you will learn of their opinion, attitudes, and values in regard to various aspects of rural development.

I say this because recently I did a Sense of Place research of an area in Macedonia and learned a lot of things about rural development history, present and future through that research. People there valued infrastructure, connections, income sources, environment, inter-personal communication, freedom, and even 'source' of marriage. In the past, "people moved out for a box of matches" because it took them 4h to get to the closest shop/town.

In any case, it is a good discussion.

Measuring development of a rural community depends on the livelihood system of the people. But because large percent of the rural communities are agrarian, I will suggest that the measurement framework could include infrastructural and service provision, nature and level of social capital systems as well as the level of value chain development in the area.

I have just been to a seminar where one of the speakers said that there has been almost no development in agricultural practices in Tanzania in the past 30 years. What has developed in the rural areas are the buiding of schools and hospitals... I don't know if that helps you, but you could see how agricultural practises and production has changed....It might be very different in the area where you work

A useful concept to consider is societal resilience, a set of measures developed by Artur Steinerowski at SRUC, Scotland (http://www.sruc.ac.uk/asteinerowski) and tested for rural communities in southern Scotland. An example of its application is also available for a community in rural Serbia, accessible at http://www.sruc.ac.uk/downloads/download/552/2013_sustainable_rural_development_in_serbia.

There may be something useful for you here, though to be more helpful it would be useful to know what the objectives of your work are. What are you trying to do by defining the variables for the current development of a rural community?

Best regards,

Steve

you can also consider social capital, as it is also important in a rural community, but it can only be analysed qualitatively as it is difficult to quantify

Hello Shun,

greetings from Adelaide

Lots of good comments have been made. I would like to support Emanuela's statement that Institutions (ie the concepts and principles underlying justice, intercommunity collaboration etc not the organizations of such) and Leadership, which is almost a 'wild-card' since so dependent on individual qualities and choices, are key variables

Moreover, like Bojan I suggest that it is fundamental to gaining insight into the communities you are working with to ask the different groups in the community, at least women and youth separately, what they think the key variables are and what are their ranges of expression

Cheers

A comment more: please, follow Boyans' suggestion, one of the smartest among the very useful set of scholar keys the collegues give to you. What you find listening direcly in the field it's always so differently interesting. Best rgds. Daniel

Development is a broad and very complex phenomenon that can hardly be assessed with a few variable. It is multidimentional, and models of development are reletive to the history, culture, social fabric and the economic system of the country. There could be economic issues related to individuals and households, comunities as well as power relations and political issues undelying the system. a KAP study can help apprehend them. But, start with a good micro or sociology theory framework: read Christopher Barrett (poverty traps) and D. Narayan ( participatory rural appraisal/evaluation methods:PRA)

strange no one mentioned demographic trends. Rural community struggle with their capacity to retain young people. Also, rural is not synonymous with agriculture (also in developing countries...). So, industrial mix is another variable to take into account. I would also add accessibility (remoteness can be a challenge). But these are only to get a general idea , then you must go on field...

You may want to have a look at the OECD New Rural Paradigm to deal with your issue (" almost all the frameworks so far are for purely agricultural communities or purely urban communities. ") as I said the OECD has introduced a new framework to assess rural development based on the evidence that agriculture generates a limited share of employment and income in many rural regions. So, again, local industrial mix can be a good variable to take into account.

Overriding all other variables, covering all the basic necessities, such as food, healthcare, education, clothing. basic public services and some discretionary income for basic amenities is the core standard for assessing the level of human development/human quality of life of any community, rural or urban. As for the GNI, I would dare to say that the local GDP is a better measurement of local general income for the community, unless, the community has income that comes from outside the country. Yet, if 70% of the population is composed of migrant workers, then you need to make sure to incorporate the remittances that these workers send to their families in the community. Also, if for all the salaried workers, including prominently the 70% that works outside of the community, it is critical to assess whether the workers are being paid a living wage as defined in Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (enough to cover all of his her household necessities in a dignified manner. The fundamental context, whether rural or urban, is that enjoying a dignified quality of life is a human right and that is the goal of human development in a truly democratic society.

The most important variables for assessing the development of rural communities are education, health and income generation. These three indicators play significant role for the development of rural poor people.

You could also look at availability of sustainable institutions that will continue and contribute to generating benefits to the community for continued livelihood, including increased disposable incomes. These should be institutions that embrace gender consideration and all environmental and social issues.

The most important variable individual cultures, beliefs and social life ways

Hey Shun, you have asked a very big question mate! Probably you need to be clear what are you exactly trying to measure? Community development, as most of the commemorators have mentioned, is multi dimensional. Probably, you need to find the theory of change and focus on something specific. Do you want to measure the community development in relation to human development, gender relations, social capital, agency of people, governance, migration and remittances or do you want to see infrastructure development (road, irrigation, telecommunication....) or natural resources management and development or health, education related indices! If you want to have something really big, probably you need to find indicators for multiple sectors/ themes and measure them.

social change, development, innovation and social factors are important in rural areas

Hi Sina, please elaborate, it's very intriguing!

Also thanks everyone for the answers so far. I admit it is a huge undertaking. However I am trying to be as all-encompassing as possible in terms of quantifiable variables. It is all very good to specify and focus, makes for a great PhD project in fact. On the hand, think about it. If you are trying to convince a government in Southeast Asia to look at a theoretical framework of rural community development, then your project will remain just that. Governments in SEA do not have the expertise, nor the manpower, nor the will to sit and read a dissection of cultural anthropology. What is more likely to get something done is that there is a fomula, a set of equations a bureaucrat can simply plug in to form a nicely summarised over-view of whichever community one needs to find out about. Don't get me wrong, at researcher level we definitely need to have a great level of theoretical depth, but to provide a method for governments to assess the development of their communities the development of a robust index covering as many quanitifiable variables is what governments are looking for.

The bureaucrats might be content with social capital variables. This could include an extended network study. Who helps who - who works or volunteers with who - these are important factors for community development - perhaps as important as economic indicators.

I think we can consider SEAGA from FAO to get answer on how to find out what to consider when assessing development of rural community. The FAO SEAGA approach is quite useful to ensure valuable assessment on this matter. There is information about gender and there development strategy used by man and woman as they have different need and feelings.

As many people can know, in Africa for example woman taking care of agricultural activities, taking care of child and kitchen. All this need strategies otherwise it may starve the livelihood.

If all people together can think how to build strategies for the coming food problems as the food price according to IFPRI (2009) has estimated that from 2010 to 2050 the price of grain will increase 59% for wheat, 78% for rice and 106% for maize, whilst FAO (2009) has projected for 9.2 billion people by 2050.

In my view we need to concentrate our research and strategy to find out ways to feed this people, as agriculture production must rise by 70% production globally and 100% in developing countries by 2050.

Which strategy can work as the World countries as different Government and capacity for food production?

Will governments wait for the disaster arrival? Then claiming for food aid?

What are the role of researchers station and International Development agencies for this warning from IFPRI and FAO?

What is the Government of the different countries thinking about the issue of food to feed people?

Many poor countries their Government waiting to receive aid and doing nothing to their population for this warning!!!!!!!

What to do to turn up side down of the coming food problem?

Kind regards

The most important as per my understanding would to address the immediate needs of about 70% of the community who are migrant workers from elsewhere in the country. As they would not be having the minimum required support system and social security measures, it would be important according to me to address the immediate need for creating a community feeling among the migrants. This is the only the first step, from there on they need regular monitored for the availability of the following key economic aspects of generation of income which would support nourishing food, portable water and education which are the basic needs.

If you frame/structure your questionnaire around these variables you should be able assess the development of a rural community.

You could go ahead and look for welfare indices and infrastructure. Thanks.

From my view, rural community is a group of people that having economic vulnerability through their chronic dependence on agriculture in income generation. Thus the 1st point in mitigating this vulnerability would be a comprehensive accessibility improvement start from basic welfare services. Also important to think about natural resource management strategy for ecological integrity. Why? Many of the environmental issues are closely related to poverty in the rural area.

The major variables to be considered include, inter alia, the following:

(1) Level of Economic Empowerment. This has to be measured in terms of the (i) average earnings per day, (ii) adequacy (sufficiency) of the earnings for livelihood of barest minimum standard, (iii) sufficient quantity of nutritious food to the children, (iv) access to services of formal sector banking and financial institutions etc.

(2) Level of Social Empowerment. This has to be measured in terms of factors like (i) membership in social organisation including SHGs, NGOs etc. (ii) officiating role in such organizations, (iii) Level of education, including access to continuing education programmes by Government, NGOs etc. , (iv) Gainful employment, particularly in public institutions on a permanent basis etc.,

(3) Political Empowerment: This may be Measured in terms of (i) commanding role (office bearers etc.) in any political / socio-political organisations, (ii) whether an elected representative of any public or government institution etc.

(4) Family empowerment (in respect of women / children etc.). Role in family decision making process, whether opinion(s) are considered in family decisions? etc. etc.

(5) Preparedness to use and access to products and services enabled by modern Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Factors to be considered here are (i) Awareness of ICT-based tools like Mobile phone, e-mail, e-banking, telephone etc. (ii) level of preparedness / readiness to use such products and services, (iii) Extent of availability for getting training / orientation in the use of ICT-based products and services etc. etc.

A number of variables as above need to be considered and suitable factors influencing the major variables should be found depending on the peculiar nature of the rural community under study. Because, there may be differences in the characteristics, level of development etc. among different rural communities across the world, say because of the impact of ICT.

(Dr. Manoj P K, CUSAT, Kerala).

Hello hello, Sina's answer about the differential impact of new access to ICT technology (notably new mobile fone networks throughout the Pacific and SE Asia) is very important. Where UN indices based on income, education and involvement in community based or political organizations are too coarse to capture the variations and dynamics of social and individual/ family changes, especially in countries or regions with sparse governmental and civil society structure, the capacity to access and exchange information thro' ICT will go some way to measuring huge gains in empowerment of both urban and rural people.

Dear Shun,

in order to answer to your interesting question, you should firstly clarify what do you mean by "development", as this is very ambiguous and polysemic concept. Furthermore, according to its creators, the HDI is an indicator that is not suitable for any situation and context: it should be used only for international comparisons. When possible you should use indicators that are more relevant for the specific case. Last, but not least, wherever is feasible, you should choose indicators using participatory methods, in order that the selected indicators reflect as much as possible the values (priorities, aspirations, needs, ...) of the local community.

what of cultural change indices? For communities trapped in progress-resistant traditions and belief systems etc, measuring the degree of readiness to abandon maladaptive practices could constitute a development index. many social scientists involved in analyzing rural development in Africa tend to neglect the crucial role of worldview maladaptiveness or culture can play in stalling progress in rural communities in Africa. I think that it will be very difficult to achieve development in some areas unless the anti-development mind-set is first of all extracted from the people. After all as Harrison said underdevelopment is a state of the mind

You need to clearly state your objectives so that you will have a clear direction as to ways to tackle the issue at hand. Thanks.

I think access to resources for food and livelihood security are the most important ones when we are trying to measure the development in rural communities. Considering the degree of poverty prevalent in under developed and developing countries this is in my view most significant aspect to consider before move ahead with other parameters. Once these basic human needs are fulfilled then we should move up and consider other parameters as various answers above have clearly indicated.

Ernest Yongo Kmfri

Fisrt identify key drivers of their livelihoods. Then consider accessibility of this livelihood that community depend on. Find out if there are conflicts on the source of livelihood and or how it is distributed amongst them. Are there times when the use of the livelihood is contested. It would be then useful to plot what time of the year the conflict occur. Then list other livelihood sources which should be raked according to the most important to the least important. If there are natural resources in this rural system, say fisheries, forest or water, then those who use it positively and negatively be identified. From here involve all in planning for the sustainable use of the resource.

Map out all heath, educational, communication systems, environmental issues that call for both private and public participation

Finally map out livelihood strategies and rank all their anticipated demand of those key strategies.

I guess, capital labor ratio (degree of mechanization in agriculture), access to agricultural markets, degree of rural electrification and intensity of electricity use in agriculture, access to financial institutions, means of transport and communication, per capita earnings, the degree of immigration or migration, access to educational institutions and health care facilities and life expectancy could be likely variables to consider for measuring development of the rural community.

Dear Shun,

Now it has been accepted that development is not an absolute term. Thus at first I'm not clear what is meant by the term 'development' in your question. If its meaning for you is similar to what so-called development agencies like World Bank, UNDP, etc. use, then it is better to use the variables that they have been prescribing for measuring development.

However, if the meaning of development in this question is different than the prevailing stereotypical one, then only the discussion in Researchgate may prove worthier.

You may want to take a look at

H. Folmer, S. Dutta and J. Oud (2010) The determinants of rural industrialization. The case of the Badharan District, India. International Regional Science Review, 2010, 33, 367-396.

sorry -if i m late in joining the discussion.I know you know more as you are working on this issue. Of course , there is / will be debate & suggestions on whatever you /any one decide about development perspective related with "Rural Development ".

Roughly in my opinion there may be following indicators can help us in seeing the rural development:

1. Physical Infrastructure: Road , electricity , shelter etc.

2.Social Infrastructure:schools, health centers etc.

3. Income: per ca pita / family -income

4.Age : Longevity / average age.

you may write me at :[email protected] --so that we can exchange the ideas n can have more detailed n useful communication .

u may also visit :www.amitabhshukla.com

n info abt u r observations n suggestions.

wishes,

I think you need to look at five things.

1. What are the agreed development targets that a rural community sets to achieve through mutual cooperation?

2. Is the rural community organized to jointly decide its development targets?

3. What are the barriers that a community faces to achieve its targets?

4. What resources it needs to cross these barriers ?

5. How can it access the resources (including technical and social guidance) to cross these barriers.

All well and said. In addition to the used of internationally accepted indicators of development in the rural areas, we would all be surprised at the rural dweller's concept of development hence the types of variables or indicators to use. Due to the incessant need for comparison we, development practitioners are often tempted to use indicators that are readily comparable. But my experience in Mozambique during a national visioning exercise revealed that our concept of development, especially by urban dwellers was completely different from the perceived views of the rural dwellers. Hence, I agree with the previous comment that rural dwellers should play a key role in defining development, the setting of targets, and if possible clear definition of sustainable means of carrying out the various strategies of achieving some measurable development that becomes internally owned and supported. Then practitioners could offer technical advice based on some best practices.

again I agree with the last view of the issue: local communities have to be structural part in the definition of the issue and in the design of the solutions. In my opinion, using longer or shorter lists of indicators should be the consequence of these participative definition of the research, not its starting point. Even if all this could be not easily exportable in a "set of equations a bureaucrat can simply plug in to form a nicely summarised over-view of whichever community one needs to find out about.", as remembered very rightly remembered Shun. This possibly operative step should come from the previous one, and carefully used in the more correspondent context. Best regards. Daniel

I do not share this Rousseauistic romancing of the rural dweller as author and definer of development. As far as I am concerned poverty is poverty and if the rural could get out of poverty on his own, without some form of external compulsion or guide, then there would be no need for all these theories of rural development. Development as we know it is precisely what the rural has been incapable of achieving, hence the need for intervention. Let's be realistic: asking an African peasant in a remote forest region or in the barren savanna to be the definer of what constitutes development or what are the right criteria for evaluating it may just be like asking the blind to define and evaluate good sightedness. We should just forget all this crab about participatory rural development. The rurals in Africa need to be properly guided and educated before they can own development. Most of them frankly speaking do not even know what is best for them

I could not read all the answers so may be my own comments will be out of focus. I guess you are thinking of a community in China, in which there is a large proportion of migrants. From your message, I am not sure if the community you are referring to actually receive or sent migrants. But anyway, in both cases, I would try to have a look to remittances and the way they are invested in the community. If these remittances are only used for consumption goods, the consequences, in terms of development, ar not the same than if the money is used for local development projects, in agriculture or in the industry. This topic has been greatly debated by China specialists, but a fresh research on the issue would be interesting.

@Louis Augustin-jean: Actually, it's a longhouse community in Borneo.

Here's a paper that looks at development from a socio-cultural perspective. I don't know that it will simplify your task but it offers a different perspective that focuses on cultural assimilation and diffusion as explanatory variables for degree of development or transition to an industry based economy from an agriculture base society.

http://web.williams.edu/Economics/wp/AshrafGalorCulture.pdf

First, we should be clear on the definition of development. Development is raising the standard of leaving of the masses of people-in this case in the rural community. Such a definition requires increases in income and social status of people. These in turn requires increases in material production-particularly basic needs of the population, availability of social services(health and eduction), training facilities, necessary inputs (fertilizers , water etc) and infrastructure. But who should do all these? This is the main question.

Achieving these objectives requires a representative central, provincial and rural governments which in turn necessitates democracy and participation of peasants themselves. Unless the necessary institutions are available the development will not be easy.

Furthermore, in cases cash crops for exports are important items of production and foods are important items of imports, changes in agricultural policies of EU and the USA would be essential.

Maybe you can also use some subjective well-being (happiness) measures, like those used in the literature by Daniel Kahneman, Ed Diener, Ruut Veenhoeven and others. They are useful as an alternative overall assessment of development.

From the theoretical point of view, happiness has been proposed as the ultimate goal (or the highest good as an ancient Greek would put it) by many philosophical schools. Old and new. Including the english utilitarianism which (for good or bad) has been so influential in economic thought.

And from the practical point of view, once you have read the literature on subjective well-being measurement, happiness can be assessed at a low cost for big groups of people.

Aside from the pages of these guys, you can find some theorical and practical backrground summarized in the webpage of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress http://www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr/en/index.htm

I would want to investigate whether the phenomenon of migrant work itself is not an indicator of "development." Migrant seems likely to be a result of increased involvement with the global economy, and decreased viability of self-sufficiency through local indigenous economic strategies. Although your work is in Borneo, it might be useful to look at the work done by Ellen Judd on migrant women workers in rural China. I appreciate other contributors' comments on degrees of etic and emic approaches to operationalizing "development," but I also think it is important to recognize that by definition the concept measures change over time, and therefore data and analysis must have a processual dimension regardless of what variables are used.

Hi Shun,

Standard models are great but they do not necessarily cover all the particularities of every community under the sun. Different cultures have different views of development and therefore it is important to get an idea about what the people themselves see as development given the social, economic, cultural and ecological environment within which they have evolved. On the other hand a highly migrant community where the migrants may have come from different social backgrounds would suggest that the people have with different aspirations and perspectives of development. The question for example is, have the migrant come to settle in the new place permamently or they are just temporary economic migrants who are interested in exploiting the economic potential of the place and to engage in capital flight.

Many factors go into what a group of people may consider as development and therefore it is imperative that researchers get a "true and faithful" perspectives of the community to activate real time development.

The issue about poverty is poverty or that rural communities may not know what development is good for them and that is why they probably are underdeveloped is neither here nor there. knowing what one wants and having the capacity to provide for for it are two different things. Respectfully, wheras I can agree that some rural communities may need guidance through education to be able to articulate their development needs and priorities, all who think that rural people do not know what they want should rethink the stereotypes. Great amounts of so called development aid have allegedly been poured into the so called developing world but not very much in real terms can be seen. This can be attributed to mismatches between the scales of knowledge and action and this may be because some people thought that they knew what was good development of the recipients.

Please let us customise standard models case be case. At the end of the day, I can imagine that good health, education, housing, employment and income are basic, but let us remember that what one community may consider as good housing for instance may not necessarily be considered as such by another community if the design does not fit the achitectural flavour of the community and the culture that defines their identity.

Dear all

Immigration throughout the ages (prehistory to modern era) has altered its meaning. Immigration thus is a spacio-temporal phenomenon that reflects variables at the timing of occurence.

Such variables are poverty, exploitation, impiety, exile, expansion, climatic impacts to mention a few. Hope these few thoughts help...

Variables important to assessing "development" of rural communities.

Education.

Health status and health facilities.

Agricultural technology support.

Family income

Wage migration is not development. It is a means of acquiring capital that can be invested in the community; therefore, it is a pre-development variable.

Interesting point, James! I like your term, "pre-development variable." I agree that migrant labor is more related to globalization generally than to development specifically, so I appreciate your refinement of my point that it should at least be considered in the question. Getting back to the emic/etic question, then, are migrant labor and other indicators of the complex variable "globalization" all prerequisite to "development"? Although they could be construed otherwise, the four variables - education, health status and facilities, agricultural technology support and family income - seem to assume etic measures. Is it possible for "development" to be defined in such a way that dependence on the global wage economy is not necessary? I am curious to know what kind of labor Shun's migrant workers are performing.

Migrants or transmigrants? Cory, there is very interesting literature in the American Studies arena on transnationalism. Ahiwa Ong on Flexible Citizen touches on mobility and the power it represents to new immigrants or transmigrants. In Global Matters, Paul Jay makes a challenging comparison and contrast on different scholars' opinions about globalization. When doing research on globalization is important to be sure what approach are you going to use to examine globalization. A synchronic approach would produce results that differ from those obtained through a diachronic approach....remember also that place and space are incredibly mobile concepts.

David - Good points! Thanks for those useful sources, which ground this discussion in applicable theory.

In urban studies an important variable is the percentage of people who live in a city and also work in the city. A higher number is considered a sign of development. For example, Detroit in the 1940s had a measure of 40%, whereas now it has dropped into the low teens. If this measure were applied to a rural community, labor migration would be a negative for "development."

However, nowadays, one has to factor in global communication technology. If families can keep in touch via the Internet or other means, then a breakdown in family community structure can be reduced. If modern communication allows them to move rapidly and send remittances easily, then the impact of wage-labor migration can be mitigated. For example, many migrants from Mexico feel it is important to return to their home community for the annual religious fiestas. The Caribbean case of migration to the UK in the 1960s is a good example of low-impact migration.

Thus, two variables could be included in a measure of "development": (1) the ratio of people working in the town who also live in the town (positive for development), (2) the abandonment rate for spouses (negative for development). The latter measure assumes that stable families are good for development. Of course, I am assuming that "development" in rural communities has something to do with the economic health and social vitality of the community, and is not just a prosperity measure derived from macroeconomic models.

The study of economic development goes back in time. There seems to be a need for references in this discussion, so I am throwing out a bibliography of some earlier books.

Bernard, H. R. and P. J. Pelto, eds. (1972). Technology and Social

Change. New York: Macmillan.

Bodley, John H. (1990). Victims of Progress. Third Edition. Mountain

View, CA: Mayfield.

Cockcroft, James D., Andre Gunder Frank, and Dale Johnson. (1982). Dependence and Underdevelopment: Latin America's Political Economy. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday.

Davis, S. (1977). Victims of the Miracle: Development and the Indians

of Brazil. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Davis, Shelton H. (1988) Land rights and indigenous peoples: The role

of the Inter-American commission on human rights. Cambridge, MA: Cultural

Survival, Inc.

"Economic Development and Cultural Change" is an excellent journal and has some time depth to it.

Foster, George M. (1962). Traditional Cultures and the Impact of Technological Change. New York: Harper and Row.

Oppenheimer, Andres. (1998). Bordering on Chaos : Mexico's Roller-Coaster Journey to Prosperity (Reprint edition) (August 1998) Little Brown & Co.

Spindler, Louise S. (1977). Culture Change and Modernization: Mini-Models

and Case Studies. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Swift, Jeanine. (1978). Economic Development in Latin America. New York:

St. Martin's Press.

I think you should look at the International Labour Organisation's discussion of Decent Work and the World Bank's Human Development Index. Raja

Hi Shun, when you use macroeconomic it will lead more into looking at growth which to me should be separated from development. Development should be the manifest of growth. In a rural community development can be measured by looking at variabls like access to health care services, income changes, frequencies of having food, and many more we hav used this for the fisheries communities.

Hello all, I'm happy that the discussion is still quite lively! @David Gow: Wow! that's amazing input, and I will need time to digest it all! Macroeconomic measures was my first instinct. I am aware that lots of parameters are being missed out, and am unsure of how they can be resolved, hence my asking of the question in the first place.

@Cory Willmott: Thank you for your input as well! The labour that the outgoing migrants fill are of various types. Some work on oil palm plantations, some do minor clerical work, some work as low-skilled workers on various civil engineering projects.

List of the meaningful indicators of rural development could be fairly long (like the indicators of (rural) of both physical and social infrastructure; their relative significance would vary both temporally and spatially. In one of our empirical study (based on cannonical correlation analysis), we have observed that concomitants of co-operative banking (duly supplemented with the usual indicators of rural infrastructure) in agrarian economies like Indian Punjab are very significant determinants of rural status of the economy.

I guess the degree of mechanization, education, regional (rural) value added per capita or agricultural value added per capita, average life, access to, distance from and quality of social (education, health, finance, courts) and physical (roads, electricity, gas, markets) infrastructure are good indicators to assess rural development.

I think the income of the migrants plus that of the locals as a measure of the price of the agriculture produce could be one of good proxies of the attributes for assessing the development of such rural community..

It is also important to understand the nature of the various social groupings within a rural community, as well as the varying degree of willingness of each of the sub-groups to accept changes or participate in the proposed changes. For example, if established community members were normally not declaring their accounts to the tax authorities. In communities where there is a well developed informal economy, many people will be unaccustomed to paying the full compliment of taxes required. It follows then that any changes stimulate new businesses might cause some resistence on the part of local people, if the 'new' business community regularly submit their books to accountants and comply with fiscal regulations.

Infrastructural development, such as road, transport,; educational development, financial outreach, social and cultural awareness, indigenous products and services and their market; and realization that the deprived sector can contribute to the economic growth are some measures to consider while assessing the rural development.

I agree with you Binod in addition to those variables i think remittance income for migrant worker will be relevant as a vita variable

I think you need indicators to measure accumulation of five forms of access to market/wealth:

1. Human Capital-skill improvement, health, nutrition intake

2. Social Capital: local organizations, networks and professinoal organizations

3. Physical capital: infrastructure development, shelter, water and sanitation services

4. Natural Capital: Development/Degradation of soil. land, water, vegetation cover, forests etc.

5. Financial Capital: savings/indebtedness

You need to first of all identify the key measurable catalyst of development which are social groups and the quality of human capital by particpatory rapid rural appraisal to really know your variables of interest and use any relevant model to assess for policy relevance

in addition to their capital endowment, i think it might be useful to assess rural communities within the space of capability. see Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen

In addition to above indicators, share of agricultural export in total export of the economy is good indicator for rural development. Because if share of agricultural commodities in total export of developing economy is increasing, means agriculture and rural development is adjusting according to the requirement of international market. This brings vibrancy in rural economy.

Pasquale De Muro has mentioned a very important aspect: "comparability". Are you going to compare your results with other studies? Than you should use the same or very similar variables as the ones used in the other studies?

I would also recommend to focus your study. Depending on which aspect of "development" you are interested in very different sets of variables become relevant. I find the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach very useful to start with. But that is only how I frame it.

Have you looked at the work of Peter Phibbs at UWS as he has often written on this matter. There are several PHD's written on this area from the school of Urban and regional planning at Sydney, you should be able to locate them through inter-library loans.

Dear Shun,

a reference standard for international statistics on rural development is the Handbook edited by the Wye City Group, working under UN Statistics Division. The second edition of the handbook was released last year, you can download the file at the following link:

http://www.fao.org/economic/ess/ess-capacity/wyegroup/wyehandbook/en/

Dear Shun,

if you read French, this my peculiar way to face such questions. Usefully tested for rural communities. Pirrone & Charles (2011) L'espace de liberté comme mesure synthétique du développement territorial durable}, Revue Tiers Monde (207) 61-77

As has been mentioned it depends on what you mean by development. I would consider some variables like infant mortality rates, female enrolment in education, female participation in the labour force, poverty rates (headcount at least), access to clean drinking water, some indicators on housing, health of children and adults, etc. Good luck! Raja

Dear Shun,

I think you should use household percapita income which is a better measure for the income of a household.

Dear Shun,

Development is a highly controversial term, you need to clarify what you mean by development and which approach you intend to follow. Moreover, development is generally speaking defined as a process, which can hardly be measured. Also the HDI that you mention is a (static) indicator of wellbeing in a society. So, if you endorse the human development/capability approach as I would strongly, recommend, you should definitely organize focus groups to identify the wellbeing/dimensions people really value. This would be consistent with Amartya Sen's position. Please, do not consider the HDI, tis has been built for specific purposes very different from those that motivate your research. Moreover, life expectancy in a community does not make much sense and the GNI is simply impossible to measure.

Last but not least, if you decide to use a traditional economicistic framework to assess development, definitely you should use people's median income, which is much better than GNI (even Brazil measured its national and local HDI with the median income).

Definition of development, as has already been said by many, is controversial and means different things for different groups depending upon their political, economic or other positions. However, in my view an absolute measure of the state of development of a community may be measured through a weighted index based on security of life, consistency in availability of food, availability of clothing, availability of shelter, security of livelihood (regardless of whether it is agri based or not), independence in making personal/family decisions, access to health facilities, access to education facilities, security of basic needs during illness and/or old age etc. Some of these variables are more difficult than others to measure but I think many are critical.

Dear Rauf, what you suggest is a mix between basic needs approach and livelihoods approach, which are very different from human development/capability approach. I make just a quick an example: why measuring "consistency in availability of food" instead of people's nutrition? That is possible by employing, for example, anthropometric indicators.

The fact that development is a controversial term does not mean that it cannot be defined: a definition is indispensable for a measurement exercise.

In rural economies (and to some extent even in urban economies), at least in my country, many people are employed only intermittently often in informal (unskilled or semiskilled) jobs and the periods of un-employment are irregular. A person (or family) may undergo a great deal of suffering due to such extended periods of un-employment which may be a result of illness (of self or a family member) or simply due to unavailability of work. During such periods there is absolutely no support by the state therefore it may put a family into the troubles from where recovery becomes impossible. I think (sustainable) development needs to have in-built systems to providing hedging against this kind of risks. Therefore, I think the availability of continued support whether it comes from some social structures of a community (for instance in our case extended family often serves as one source of such support) or from the state is critical. This has the capability to help save the vulnerable from falling below some critical levels. So I think availability of such support (hedging) against loss of nutrition/food, shelter, ability to survive during and recover from illness.

Here, in my country, I have seen many people, spiral into irrecoverable vicious poverty just because of illness or natural calamity.

In my opinion the development of a rural community should be first of all sustainable from an economic, social and environmental perspective. It is evident that every development process could not be durable if it doesn't entail the conjoint pursuing of these three pillars. Bearing that in mind, one could assess the development process by identifying and measuring those variables that are related to indicators of sustainability along these three pillars.

Some examples, applied to agricultural systems but good starting point, can be found here:

Sydorovych, Olha, and Ada Wossink. “The Meaning of Agricultural Sustainability: Evidence from a Conjoint Choice Survey.” Agricultural Systems 98, no. 1 (Luglio 2008): 10–20. doi:10.1016/j.agsy.2008.03.001

or here:

Van Cauwenbergh, N., K. Biala, C. Bielders, V. Brouckaert, L. Franchois, V. Garcia Cidad, M. Hermy, et al. “SAFE—A Hierarchical Framework for Assessing the Sustainability of Agricultural Systems.” Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 120, no. 2–4 (Maggio 2007): 229–242. doi:10.1016/j.agee.2006.09.006.