“Better understanding rural sustainability is key to addressing pressing global challenges, such as food insecurity or migratory flows caused by economic deprivation or climate change” said Melania Mora, from the Baha’i International Community (BIC) Brussels Office when joining a workshop titled 'Rural Development and the Capability to Stay’ at the Duke University Center for International Development, co-sponsored by the Social Science Research Council and the Center on Modernity in Transition (COMIT). 

The hybrid workshop brought together an interdisciplinary group of academics and practitioners from the US, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia to explore sustainable, alternative approaches to rural development. Ms. Mora underlined the importance of the workshop in the context of the BIC’s ongoing work on rural sustainability, drivers of migration or more generally, governance for global partnerships. 

The aim of the first session was to analyze various mainstream and alternative logics of development and how they relate to historic and current notions of rural development. One relevant insight that emerged was that it is vital to bridge local and indigenous knowledge systems and modern science at the global level, for these to inform and extend each other farther than either system can go alone. The participants also discussed the importance of rural livelihoods and what the future of such a livelihood would look like. 

A second session explored the concept of the generation, application, and distribution of local knowledge. Local knowledge involves elements such as the understanding that a community holds about its own needs and internal social dynamics, for example, or of the reaction of soils in a geographic area to a particular production technique. Participants highlighted the important role that such local knowledge plays in building resilient communities and explored how methodologies can be designed that consider and strengthen local knowledge generation and flows.

The third session looked at the capability of people to stay in their local communities. The session noted how research often focused on what pushes people to leave their homes, but not on what would help them stay. The participants felt that a focus on people’s capability to choose where to live, and how these capabilities can be enhanced, was a more meaningful way to address the challenges around rural livelihoods.