The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development represents a paradigm shift in the development agenda, establishing, for the first time, a collectively agreed set of universal goals for an inclusive and sustainable global development process.

It also represents a step change in ambition, which implies a new and different approach to development and development policies, especially in the LDCs.

Rural development will be central to the quantum leap in the rate of progress required for LDCs to achieve the SDGs. More than two thirds of people in LDCs live in rural areas, where poverty is also most widespread and deepest, and infrastructure and social provision most lacking. Rural development is essential, not only to poverty eradication, employment generation and economic development, but also to sustainable urbanization.

What are some of the financing constraints facing local rural economies and communities as they seek to grow and transform themselves? How can these be overcome? How can public and private sources of finance work well together to support rural transformation?

Following the launch of UNCTAD’s The Least Developed Countries Report 2015 “Transforming Rural Economies”, #UNCDFExpertChat spoke with Mr. Taffere Tesfachew, Director, Division for Africa, Least Developed Countries and Special Programmes, UNCTAD, about a new road map for transforming rural economies and eradicating rural poverty.