only will it help both but will also avoid discrimination and avoid the concept of being neglected. Similarly, there will be no “urban
bias” if local government offices with jurisdiction over rural districts have urban locations, unless this removes them too far from the influence of rural producers and populations. Most international agencies must
make a strong commitment to meet- ing the goals outlined in the Millennium Development Goals. These goals or targets must relate to improving service provision to rural communities. For instance, significant improve- ments will be needed in maternal and child health services (including pre- natal and post-natal services) and sup- port for improved water and second- ary education, health if the following Millennium Development Goals are to be met:
• Reducing by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015 the under-five mortality rate;
• Reducing by three- quarters between 1990 and 2015 the maternal mortality rate;
• Halting by 2015 and beginning to reverse the spread of
HIV/AIDS and the incidence of malaria and other major diseases;
• Halving by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water;
• Eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2009.
All these and the achievement of
many other goals, such as reducing extreme poverty and hunger, will require great improvements in services provision – most of which must locate in rural or small peri-urban centers. In many low-income and some middle-income nations, between a quarter and half the total population live in settlements with between 2,000 and 20,000 inhabitants. In some nations, most or all of these are defined as urban; in others, most or all are counted as rural. Pakistan and India can be said to be less than 30 per cent urban or more than 60 per cent rural, depending on the propor- tion of settlements with between 2,000 and 20,000 inhabitants classi- fied as urban or rural. In short, we can save the inter- national need of maintaining urban standards and not provoking rural groups by providing them the
following bare minimum: • Provision of basic needs at the doorstep of every cluster of a few villages
• Farm to market roads • Subsidies to farmers on their own products
• Respecting and safeguarding their heritage, culture, language, religion
• Provision of low rate loans for the arrangement of sophisticated equipment; both for cultivation and transportation
• Introduction of tax free zones, subsidies in taxes on houses, wealth, property
• Encouragement in the use of technology
• Awarding spear leaders • Patronizing and sponsoring rural projects, community centers, sta diums, local ceremonies and festivals such as Makha,a popular rural sport in rural areas of Pakistan and the boat village shopping mall in Thailand etc.
In making villages more protect-
ed, resourceful, prosperous and enticing, we immediately save urban areas and cities from overpopulation and burden.