Rural-Urban Dynamics Indeveloping Rural Regions
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COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT ONJ HUMAN SETTLEMENTS AND NATURAL RESOURCE SYSTEMS ANALYSIS RURAL-URBAN DYNAMICS INDEVELOPING RURAL REGIONS Proceedings of the First SARSA/SSC Seminar, 18-22 April, 1984 Clark University Institute for Development Anthropology International Development Program Suite 302. P.O. Box 818 50 Main Street 99 Collier Street Worcester. MA 016 10 Binghamton, NY 13902 RURAL-URBAN DYNAMICS IN DEVELOPING RURAL REGIONS Proceedings of the First SARSA/SSC Seminar, 18-22 April, 1984 Regional Cities Project Clark University/Institute for Development Anthropology Cooperative Agreement on Human Settlements and Natural Resource Systems Analysis (USAID) 1985 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Preface ...................... ................................... i Integrated Rural Development: The Rehovot Approach Raanan Weitz ............................................. 1 The Image of a Rural Town According to the Rehovot Approach: An Integrated Link in the Regional System Israel Prion ............................................ 44 Alienation and Collaboration in Rural-Urban Relationships in Israel Rachel Wilkansky ........................................ 76 Urban-rural Relations in the Lakhish Region- Planning and Reality Julia Margulies and Avshalom Rokach .................... 102 Beer Sheba: A Town with Non-agricultural and Sparsely Populated "Hirterland" Ariel Nesher............................................... 119 The Organization ProceGs of a Rural Population: The Case of the Bedouins in the Negev Region Gideon Vitkon .......................................... 135 The Role of Rural Towns in the induistrialization of Rural Areas: Empirical Evidence from Northeast Brazil Raphael Bar-El................................. *......... 145 Development of the Ugandan Dairy Industry: Subordination of Rural Development Policy to Urban Interests Neal P. Sherman ........................................ 166 PREFACE In 1981, Clark University and the Institute for Development Anthropolngy entered into a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Agency for International Development on the subject of Human Settlements and Resource Systems Analysis (SARSA). The pL'rpose of the cooperative agreement is to provide technical assistance to Third World countries through USAID's programs and missions and to pursue a research effort which would provide insights to general issues of regional development. To date, SARSA has been involved in planning efforts in some tzenty countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, South America, Central America, and the Caribbean, nd SARSA has been responsible for a wide array of publications, seminars, and conferences in which the details of the research effort have been presented. One major theme in the SARSA program has been the place of the settlement system in proposed strategies of regional development so that the benefits of investment and growth might better reach both small farmers as well as city firms and residents. Referred to as rural-urban dynamics, this research and experience have proven to be a useful way of encouraging local planners to decentralize their investwents so that mutually positive effects can be gained by both the rural and urban populace. As research progressed on the rural-urban dynamics theme, it became clear that Israel has had considerable experience in the planning of settlements, not only in Israel but in the Third World as well. Beginning with the pioneering work of Raanan Weitz, as insightfullv presented in his book, From Peasant to Farmer: A Revolutionary Strategy for Development, Israeli planners carefully orchestrated the development of the regions of their country, and in those plans they explicitly pursued a strategy which symbiotically promoted both urban and rural growth. Furthermore, Professor Weitz captured the essence of that experience in his theoretical work and proceeded to develop a methodological framework which has come to be known as the "Rehovot Approach." As Chairman of the Board of Directors and Founder of the Settlement Study Centre, Rehovot, Israel, Professor Weitz has actively experimented with this approach in numerous Third World countries. The Settlement Study Centre, for 22 years, has conducted about 60 courses, each with 30 students, and as part of each course the students spend 10 weeks in a Third World country in which the Rehovot model is applied in its entirety. ( Because of the obvious similarities between SARSA's goals and the Settlement Study Centre's experiences, it was felt that a seminar would be a useful way of exchanging ideas and fostering continued experimentation. That first seminar was held in Rehovot, Israel on 18 to 22 April, 1984. The American participants were: Gerald Karaska (Clark University), Avrom Bendavid-Val (USAID), Fred Glickman (USAID), Robert Hackenberg (University of Colorado), Mike McNulty (University of Iowa), and Gerald Rushton (University of Iowa). The Israeli participants were: Raanan Weitz, Rafi Bar-El, Julia Margulies, Avshalom Rokach, Gideon Vitkon, Israel Prion, Ariela Nesher, Neal. Sherman, David Pelley, Zvi Weininger, Shalom Zamir, Daniel Freeman, Deboira Auerbach, Aaron Dehter, Rachel Wilkansky, David Bentolila, Moshe Schwartz, and Dafna Schwartz. The major focus of the seminar dealt with the process of rural development and its dependence upon urban development, highlighting the extent to which rural productivity depends upon the support and functioning of cities. In this context, three themes came forth as significant aspects of the rural urban dynamics issue. First, the Rehovot model and its inherent methodology were seen as an invaluable theorecical device to guide regional planning strategies. While the Rehovot approach was more highly sophisticated and far better developed, there was considerable similarity with the approach in the SARSA experience. The latter, as exemplified by Lhe Urban Functions in Rural Development methodology, was still in the formative stages and lacked a meaningful planning experiencze wherein it could be assessed as a true implementation exercise: the SSC experiences already demonstrated the utility of the Rehovot approach. The second theme which became an issue in the seminar focused upon the distinction between planning as a theoretical exercise and as an actual on-the-ground or implementation strategy. At the core of both the Rehovot and the SARSA approaches is the concept of integrated rural development, wherein the planning process not only recognizes the "interrelatedness" of all activities but also wherein each sectoral or line agency makes decisions whose effects are carefully coordinated with other sectoral agencies. The experiences of both SARSA and the SSC showed that this was indeed a critical and fundamental problem, that the gap between theory and practice was enormous. Discussions focused upon experiences and situations in which the integrated rural development approach may be readily implemented (hence in conformity with the Rehovot model) and also in cases wherein decision making was too far removed from the demands of the theoretical models. For example, in ii Israel, the successful development of the Lakhish Region stands as testimony to the utility of the Rehovot approach, while the example of planning in the Beer Sheba Region highlights the difficulties and limitations of cooperation between a city-and its rural hinterland. The third focus of the seminar was an initial attempt to direct attention to extensions of the theoretical models so that they might better perform as guides to actionable projects and meaningful investment strategies. Those discussions suggested that it might be opportune to formulate models and methodologies which view regions, and their problems and development strategies, to be at different stages in a growth process. Or, put another way, discerning a typology of regions would not only highlight the critical differences among regions but also suggest key indicators along a desirable path of growth and development. In this way, a finer tuning of the general models might allow local institutions to define a constructive role in the planning process. This theme has now become the subject of a continued collaboration between SARSA and the Settlement Study Centre, and it is to be the focus of the next seminar in the Fall of 1985. This volume presents selected papers by the Israeli participants of the April, 1984 seminar. It strives to convey the essence of the integrated rural development context of the Rehovot approach, while at the same time demonstrating serious attempts to relax the rigid constraints of that model so that more realistic attempts at implementation planning might be more feasible. The papers by the American participants are not presented here because they are already well documented in other publications of the SARSA series. Interested readers should carefully examine the SARSA experiences in Panama, Bolivia, Philippines and Ecuador. The participants of the seminar wish to ac.knowledge the assistance and support of the U.S. Agency for Iternational Development and, particularly, Eric Chetwvnd and Robert Walter. Gerald J. Karaska Rafi Bar-El Avrom Bendavid-Val iii INTEGRATED RURAL DEVELOPMENT The Rehovot Approach Raanan Weitz Development of the rural areas of the poor countries has become a major challenge both to policy-makers and professionals working in the field. It was the World Bank's Pearson Report that identified agricultural growth as the weakest link in the development chain - and this view has gradually gained general