Washington , DC . February 25, 2005 . GDLN, together with more than 16 global organizations, launched the Ed Rural Alliance on February 15, 2005. The launch event was followed by a Global Dialogue, “Drivers of Sustainable Rural Growth and Poverty Reduction in Central America”, with the first session held on February 15, 2005, and the second session on February 24, 2005.

The Ed Rural Alliance is a partnership for capacity building of the rural space in Latin America and the Caribbean, which seeks to create a greater impact by combining efforts across a group of sector organizations, through policy dialogue and exchange of best practice. The Global Development Learning Network (GDLN) will serve as the community network and infrastructure to carry out these activities via distance learning.

The Alliance’s launch Dialogue provided a framework to share the results of the World Bank report titled “Beyond the City: the Rural Contribution to Development”. The study demonstrates the importance of the rural sector to Latin American economies and the need to increase investment to these areas and to approach development there with a multi-sectoral focus. The report supports greater emphasis on provision of public goods, such as education, roads and farm-related research and development, to rural areas. It also makes the argument that redistributive land policies need to be accompanied by credit and technical assistance in order to have a positive impact on income as well as the need for rural families to have a diversified source of income if they are to escape poverty.

Participating in the Global Dialogue were panels of experts on rural development, both at the local and regional level, from Honduras, Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica and Washington, DC. After a presentation by the authors on the main policy implications of the research results, a rich discussion ensued, highlighting rural information systems available in each of the countries and complementarities among rural assets.

Other aspects discussed in the dialogue series included the importance of human and social capital for the development of the rural space as well as the need to focus investment in the poorest areas.

Finally, the participants stressed the importance of ensuring dissemination of the study’s results and policy implications throughout the region - especially among those communities living in the rural space, which are often unaware of policies that impact them and the technical assistance available. With its network of partners that extends beyond the capital cities of the region, GDLN could provide just the right infrastructure to engage these communities further.

For more information on rural development activities in GDLN, please contact Bari L. Rabin at brabin@worldbank.org