Lessons on rural development, challenges and approaches

Abstract

"For 25 years, Colombia implemented a rural development policy according to models adopted in Latin America since the 1960s. That policy advanced progressively toward decentralized andparticipatory development and it also moved forward to new concept of rural territorial development. Nevertheless, the Integrated Rural Development Program - IRD, turned into a Co-financing Fund, due to several reasons, ended during the second half of the 1990s. The change of protectionist policies towards deregulation, political cooptation of the program and the weak State capacities to replacing the IRD with other alternatives to stabilize rural societies contributed to the disappearance of the policy."