From the Rural Development Department of the Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Network

Even within these regions, however, there is considerable variation across countries, which is sometimes an artifact of very different definitions of ‘rural’ . The one safe generalization is that the non-farm sector is heterogeneous. This component of the rural economy comprises a wide spectrum of activities and institutional forms, and is often linked in complex ways to country-specific agricultural settings (for a recent survey see Lanjouw and Lanjouw, 1997). It is thus difficult to provide broad policy prescriptions for promoting the sector as a whole, or even to make a case that such a policy stance would be desirable. There is no similar experience in many other parts of the world, testify to the potential contribution of the sector to overall economic growth. Policymakers wishing to promote growth in the rural non-farm economy must sort through the myriad activities and institutions, and focus on those subsectors that actually contribute to economic development goals.