Over the many years, the disappointment of the results of past development efforts in many countries has been growing in the world at a higher level. This gap between rich and poor has only been widening so far, and, in many cases, has led to worse conditions for the poorer segments of the population. It is clear that the increasing differences between haves and have-nots generated by past development are not restricted to the widening gap between rich and poor. The same growing dualism can be observed between regions within countries and on a world-wide scale, between industrial and developing countries. The very unsatisfactory results of past development efforts seems to lie in the basic approach. This approach can be characterized as an attempt to promote development by applying economic principles derived from experiences in developed countries. It was not fully realized that the conditions in developing countries were far more different as regards for instance factors like

• The rate of population increase,
• The degree of international communication,
• The educational level,
• The availability of new technologies,
• The value system of the population.

The reassessment of development strategies during the last years tried to surmount the trial-and-error period and to use the experience of the past to design a new strategy which, it is hoped, might yield better results. For the development of the rural areas, during recent years, the concept of integrated rural development has been widely accepted.

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