In Indian context.

Currently, the research community lacks the capacity to provide accurate, up-to-date information about conditions and trends in rural areas. Bringing together some of the best known rural development researchers, this volume begins to build an information base that can serve as a foundation for rural development policy. It deals with four components of development—education, entrepreneurship, physical infrastructure, and social infrastructure. The opening chapters address two aspects of each component—the use of the component to achieve rural development and measuring the impact of its use. The volume then applies specific analytic methods of measuring impact to each component. The opening chapters address two aspects of each component—the concept of using that component to achieve rural development and the concept of measuring its impact. The volume then examines analytic methods of measuring impact. Following an overview of analytic methods, chapters apply a different analytic technique to each of the components. The techniques considered include econometric models, computable general equilibrium models, input-output analysis, and the case-study method.

Facing new challenges with respect to sustainable agriculture and rural development strategies for low-income countries, related to global environmental change and globalization of markets, an interdisciplinary Wageningen University and Research Centre group set out to draw lessons from the DLO-IC projects of the last eight years. In discussing the way ahead and a future agenda, a number of major research challenges, as well as policy questions are outlined.