Regional Business Development Landscape some experiences and case studies from Eastern and Southern Africa

Initiatives taken to improve the standard of living in rural economies are many and range from being multi sectoral to multidisciplinary in nature. It is acknowledged that over 75% of the world's poor live in rural areas (Lim Li Ching et. al, 2009) where high levels of poverty are characteristic despite sometimes having an abundance of resources. Building, productive and social assets among rural populations is important to contributing to improving the well-being of poor populations. To achieve this, many approaches have been applied; ranging from the more traditional approaches of (BDS) to the recent Making Markets work for the Poor (M4P) approach.