Welcome to the TOTAL RURAL DEVELOPMENT (TRD) Portal:

INTRODUCTION:

Several trillions of dollars have been spent globally to reduce poverty, but governments and change agents everywhere—with the exception of a few model examples—have by and large failed to empower the rural, indigent people.

Click image to download The TRD Project Rationale ~173 kb

The ‘Total Rural Development’ (TRD) project has been developed to attack the root cause of poverty: absence of livelihoods opportunities, education and access to resources. The vehicle for achieving the total transformation of rural villages is the ‘Rural Convergence Program’(RCP), which leverages:

§    Asset-based approach:  Develop Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) as a means for rural communities to maximize their creativity and productivity, while minimizing their negative environmental impact;

§    Market creation approach: (MCA)  To promote market development, and it combines two aims:

§    To supply useful and affordable products with a high poverty alleviation impact to indigent people, and

§    To create a viable business as a private delivery channel, run by the primary stakeholders;

§    Process oriented, scientific approach:  To promote ‘interactive participation’ between the change agents and the villagers, as the rural poor are considered to be the key actors in improving their own living conditions, as well as in sustainably managing their natural resources. Thus, their participation is essential to the success of the project activities.

§    Object oriented reusable approach:  A unique feature of the new paradigm is the introduction of object orientation concepts for the development of reusable and modular knowledge-based applications for implementing the ‘Rural Convergence Program’ model.

§    Transformation of morality and values of the stakeholders by the implementation of a Value-Oriented Development Model.

The RCP is therefore both a model and a tool that will be necessary to crystallize the entirely new paradigm for Total Rural Development (TRD), which is the goal of this project.

Download TRD Project Rationale ~173 kb for a complete introduction to TRD, and an explanation of the project rationale.