Training strategies for integrated rural development / edited by Joung

The United Nations Asian and Pacific Development Administration Centre (APDAC) has worked in the field of rural development from its incep tion. APDAC has organised a series of Workshops and Seminars on various aspects of rural development and has published a number of books and papers on the subject.

The national development plans of most Asian countries are now focusing increasingly on integrated programmes of rural development. Integrated rural development, as currently interpreted, is a very wide and broad concept which includes not only increased productivity, particularly agricultural productivity, but also increased and more diversified rural employment to generate higher incomes for the rural poor, as well as the provision of minimum acceptable standards of shelter, education and health in rural areas.

This is a vast field and a wide variety of government officials and private persons are required effectively to implement programmes and projects of rural development. The proper training of these persons to equip them to implement these programmes and projects efficiently is obviously a matter of great im portance which is now receiving the active consideration of training institutions and organisations in Asian countries. Many of these institutions and organisa tions are now reconsidering their strategies for training rural development. personnel. APDAC has been anxious to assist in these efforts and, in collabora tion with national training institutions, has developed training curricula and training materials on the basis of which training courses for rural development officials have been conducted in a number of Asian countries.

As part of APDAC's work in the field of rural development training, the Centre convened in Seoul, Korea during 11-17 October 1977 a Seminar on "Strategies of Training in Support of Integrated Rural Development" in Colla boration with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia the Pacific (ESCAP) and the Institute of Saemaul Undong Studies of Seoul National University. The objective of the Seminar was not to design training programmes or to identify training materials or training methodologies but to analyse the training implications of rural development programmes and to review the overall strategies of training for integrated rural development.