What is the scope for rural-urban collaboration in areas on the urban periphery? What officials think about the nature of poverty in these peri-urban communities – and about the potential solutions – is central to bringing about change. Updating these officials’ thinking involves challenging strongly held views and deeply ingrained decision-making patterns.

A research team from the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) in Bangalore focused on the twin cities of Dharwad-Hubli, in Dharwad District, Karnataka, and asked officials there about how to bridge the divide between rural and urban systems. They examined changes in understanding, attitudes and perceptions about what is termed the ‘peri-urban interface’ (PUI) and the significance of rural-urban collaboration, drawing on thirty interviews with district officials and state officials.

The research found that in order to understand the specific challenges arising from rural-urban interactions, it is necessary to overcome the way planners, researchers and NGOs consider rural and urban areas as two separate, mutually exclusive entities, and at the same time to recognise the specificity of the PUI.

The project found a significant number of barriers or constraints planning for the PUI. These included:

• an inability to coordinate, share funds and resources, unwillingness to share responsibilities or to work across jurisdictions
• low staff skills and capacities, and the lack of upgrading skills and knowledge;
• inadequate awareness of the concept of a peri-urban interface
• frequent transfers of responsible officials, and inability or lack of will of replacement officials to continue with previous officials’ interventions
• inability of district governments to make policy-level decisions.

Planned interventions to improve rural-urban linkages that both enhance the use and state of natural resources and improve the incomes and living conditions of poor women and men are still rare, but they do exist. Although they vary in many ways, they provide valuable lessons:

• Intervention models may be associated with one or more of three main planning perspectives: rural, regional or urban planning, although boundaries are increasingly blurred.
• A conceptual and methodological approach that moves away from the physical definition of urban and rural areas to a broader understanding of complex patterns of settlement and interaction is needed.
• The project managed to raise institutional and individual awareness about peri-urban issues and to bring about significant changes in attitudes and perceptions about the need for both participatory planning and rural-urban collaboration.
• The initiatives under way need to urgently clarify their scope, and to identify structural barriers and possible strategies to address them.

Source(s):
‘Working Across the Rural Urban Divide: Attitudes and Perspectives of Government Institutions’, by Adriana Allen, Sangeetha Purushothaman and Vasant Rao, Paper presented at international workshop ‘The Peri Urban Interface: A Bridge for Rural Urban Collaboration’, Bangalore, February 8-9, 2005 Full document.

Funded by: Department for International Development, UK

id21 Research Highlight: 14 February 2006

Further Information:
Adriana Allen
Development Planning Unit (DPU)
9 Endsleigh Gardens
London WC1H 0ED
United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (20) 7679 1111
Fax: +44 (20) 7679 1112
Contact the contributor: a.allen@ucl.ac.uk

Development Planning Unit, University College London, UK

Other related links:
Peri-urban Interface Research

May 2002 Insights Issue #41'Mind the gap! Bridging the rural-urban divide'

'Overcoming the rural-urban divide in China and India'

IIED Rural-Urban Linkages

Livelihoods Connect: Rural and Urban Change

'Can the links between rural and urban areas reduce poverty?'