Rural policy has seen significant shifts in the past two decades. Governance efforts have focused on improving central coordination, creating more flexible arrangements for central support, forming new institutional arrangements at local and regional levels, and building local capacity through leadership and community development programs. Policies objectives and instruments have focused on improving the competitiveness of rural areas, investing in human and social capital, diversifying economic activities, enhancing business assistance, commercializing natural and cultural amenities, finding market niches for local products, providing public services, and incorporating program evaluation procedures. Thus, rural policy has now gone beyond agricultural policy in many countries, offering new trajectories of development for rural areas. Yet these refinements and innovations tend to be recent and limited in scope. Additional work will be necessary to ascertain their effectiveness, durability, and transferability.

Les politiques d’industrialisation de l’Afrique doivent tirer parti des transformations du continent. Le premier défi est la création massive d’emplois et l’accélération de l’industrialisation. La mise en place de politiques adaptées pourrait permettre de lever les obstacles auxquels se heurtent la plupart des entrepreneurs : favoriser le développement des compétences afin de répondre aux besoins du marché du travail, soutenir les regroupements d’entreprises ( clusters ) ou encore améliorer l’accès des entreprises, en particulier des petites et moyennes entreprises, à des instruments de financement adaptés. Enfin, approfondir les partenariats existants permettra de renforcer les capacités, de transférer des connaissances et de faciliter le financement lié au développement du continent.

The OECD is a unique forum where the governments of 30 democracies work together to address the economic, social and environmental challenges of globalisation. The OECD is also at the forefront of efforts to understand and to help governments respond to new developments and concerns, such as corporate governance, the information economy and the challenges of an ageing population. The Organisation provides a setting where governments can compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practice and work to co-ordinate domestic and international policies.

No abstract

No abstract