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Cluster

Rural Futures

Through our research, policy engagement, teaching and training, we support the emergence of development pathways that deliver both greater social justice and sustainability for rural people and places, while recognising their important interconnections with urban areas and the links between local change processes and those at national and global levels.

Rural societies, economies and areas face challenges and opportunities that can be qualitatively different from their urban analogues, including limited access to infrastructure, services and political decision-making and greater exposure to some kinds of environmental shocks and stresses.

Many possible rural futures can be envisaged, each carrying implications for local livelihoods, poverty and social relations, conflict, migration, production and distribution systems, food security, natural resource management and environmental change.

We believe that improvements in social justice and sustainability can be achieved by opening up a diversity of economic, environmental and technological pathways, practices, models and institutional arrangements that create new democratic spaces, strengthen social movements, enhance innovation and empower rural men, women and young people to take greater control over their productive assets.

The aspirations, agency, voices and assets of rural people must be central to these dynamic processes. The empowerment of people in rural areas who are poor and vulnerable are central to our concerns.

Key contacts

Dominic Glover

Rural Futures Cluster Lead

d.glover@ids.ac.uk

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Recent work

Journal Article

COVID Policy and Urban Food Markets in Peru: Governance and Compliance

Urban food markets are essential channels of food distribution and spaces of social interaction where COVID-19 could be easily transmitted. The Peruvian government used budget incentives to motivate local governments to implement social distancing and food safety measures in these markets.

Giel Ton
Giel Ton & 2 others

19 February 2023

Brief

Trade Policy for Sustainable and Inclusive Agriculture (accessible version)

IDS Policy Briefing 208

Trade policy provides a powerful set of levers for accelerating a transition to more inclusive and sustainable agricultural practices. Yet, trade in agriculture is often reliant on unsustainable methods of production, misaligned to tackling hunger, inadequate in support for decent farmer...

Anna Sands & 2 others

7 February 2023

Brief

Trade Policy for Sustainable and Inclusive Agriculture

IDS Policy Briefing 208

Trade policy provides a powerful set of levers for accelerating a transition to more inclusive and sustainable agricultural practices. Yet, trade in agriculture is often reliant on unsustainable methods of production, misaligned to tackling hunger, inadequate in support for decent farmer...

Anna Sands & 2 others

31 January 2023

Projects

Project

Newton UK Peru Foodborne Diseases and Public Health Governance

IDS is part of a research consortium that implements the MRC-Newton project ‘Foodborne diseases and public health governance: comparing food safety consumer preferences and governance in the supply of meat to urban markets. The overall aim in this project is to propose public health policies...

Project

Closing the Living Wage Gap 2022 – 2025

The research is targeted to the baseline phase of a four-year research effort to explore the living wage (LW) approach set out in the 2020 Rainforest Alliance (RA) Sustainable Agriculture Standard. The new standard requires that all workers receive at least the minimum wage in their country and...

Project

Backstopping 2SCALE

With the financial support from the Dutch Ministry of Development Cooperation (DGIS), the 2SCALE programme started in June 2012, and is one of the largest incubators of inclusive agribusiness in sub-Saharan Africa. 2SCALE provides a range of support services to private partners – companies and...

Project

Conceptualisation of Earmarked Taxes to Support Food Fortification

Food fortification is one of the most rapid, cost-effective, scalable and evidence-based impactful strategies to reach hundreds of millions to combat micronutrient malnutrition, when delivered as intended (Horton, 2006, Keats et al., 2019; Mbuya et al., 2020; Saha et al, 2021). However, the...