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Project

RIMISP: Core Support for Rural Development Research Phase 2
 

South America
Project ID
107091
Total Funding
CAD 5,065,900.00
IDRC Officer
Alvaro Paz
Project Status
Completed
End Date
Duration
36 months

Programs and partnerships

Agriculture and Food Security

Lead institution(s)

Summary

Territorial inequalities persist in many parts of Latin America. For example, the mountainous Andean territories are often much poorer than coastal territories.Read more

Territorial inequalities persist in many parts of Latin America. For example, the mountainous Andean territories are often much poorer than coastal territories. Despite progress in some Latin American countries, about half of the region's territories show no signs of economic growth and they have not reduced poverty. Many policymakers in Latin America now recognize the need to better balance national and territorial objectives to ensure more equitable and widespread development. This project aims to contribute to policy and institutional change that reduces territorial inequalities, and encourages greater development of non-urban regions. The project will be led by the Latin American Centre for Rural Development (RIMISP), building on an existing research and policy-influencing program in Latin America. Project results will translate into recommendations at the national and sub-national levels to encourage strategies and investments that improve the lives of people in under-developed territories. Along with informing national and regional policies, the project encourages the private sector to adapt their practices to support territorial cohesion. As well, this project will support RIMISP's objectives of becoming an internationally recognized centre for place-based policies and territorial equality, and extending its research into other developing regions in Africa and Asia.

Research outputs

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Article
Language:

English

Summary

That territories in the same country show diverse responses to the same or similar policy
interventions suggests there are factors, both socially constructed and natural, that are not randomly distributed across space, which have territorially specific effects on development outcomes. This article introduces a special issue that reports findings from the Rural Territories Dynamics program where research was to identify such conditions of territory, and to understand how, through interactions with “extraterritorial” processes, these conditions drive patterns of rural change across Latin America. Collectives and community action can mean access to the kind of power that can shape more inclusive development.

Author(s)
Berdegué, Julio A.
Article
Language:

English

Summary

Ideally, poverty indicators improve because poor people’s livelihoods are improved. They can, however, also improve
because poor people are expelled from the territory. This article explores the case of the cattle region of Chontales, Nicaragua, which
during 1998–2005 experienced economic growth and declining poverty rates, spurred by investments and organizational development.
The article argues that in the absence of pro-poor coalitions, these investments facilitated the return and strengthening of the local elite
and that the observed decline in poverty rates emerges as the result of dispossession and subsequent exodus of the poor rather than of
inclusive economic growth.

Author(s)
Munk Ravnborg, Helle
Article
Language:

English

Summary

This paper summarizes a study of changes in per-capita income, monetary poverty, and income distribution in 9,045 subnational
administrative units of nine Latin American countries between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s. The results largely support spatial
convergence of mean household incomes, although the estimates indicate it has been slow. Territorial inequality is found to be persistent
and reduces the pro-poor effect of local income growth. Although national-context specific, the estimates also indicate that territorial
development dynamics are influenced by the structural features of the territories. In view of the evidence, territorial development policies
in Latin America seem well warranted.

Author(s)
Modrego, Félix
Article
Language:

English

Summary

The aim of this paper is to understand how access to dynamic markets occurs in three rural territories inhabited by people with low levels of economic resources and how benefits derived from that access are distributed. Particular cultural and sociological factors may be key to understanding which local assets can be successfully mobilized by public interventions. It continues to be a challenge to design policy instruments that establish conditions and socio-environmental regulations that will lead companies to internalize the negative externalities they themselves create. Public policies oriented to strengthen local capacities to organize and develop associative endeavors may be critical.

Author(s)
Escobal, Javier
Article
Language:

English

Summary

This paper, which follows the emergence of the salmon industry in the 1990s in Chiloe´, Chile, demonstrates that factors restricting women’s participation in labor force and wage differences between women and men are related to the gender systems operating in Chiloe. Results indicate that these systems reflect the territory’s demographic and agrarian history and that local gender systems have a positive influence on women’s participation in the labor market, though this is not accompanied by decreased salary discrimination in the salmon industry. The implication is that territory-specific and gender factors must be considered in national employment policies.

Author(s)
Ramírez, Eduardo
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