The governments of Southeast Asian counties need to come up with better policies for social protection, access to ICT, food security and overall development of rural people's livelihood, speakers told a regional seminar here yesterday.

“The economic growth of a country isn't possible unless there is a positive change in the livelihood of rural people,” Mokbul Morshed Ahmad from Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand said in his keynote paper at the seminar.

Center on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (Cirdap) hosted the seminar on Changing Rural Livelihoods in the Cirdap Member Countries: Opportunities and Constraints' at its auditorium here.

Cirdap Director General Dr Durga P Paudyal presided over the seminar, while Director (Training) SK Sing and representatives from member countries took part in the discussion.

Mokbul Morshed said poverty is the biggest challenge for the Southeast Asian region and it should be tackled with effective policies and programmes.

“Irrespective of the national income levels, poverty is consistently higher in rural areas than in urban areas in all the Southeast Asian countries with the highest incidence in remote and upland areas where ethnic communities live in," he said.

Mokbul said farmers are the worst victims of climate change and their number is

gradually declining, raising the number of poor people.

He suggested strong policy' for ICT infrastructure development in rural areas which will help farmers and rural people to get updated information regarding their choices. "ICT is the tool of development,” he said.

Poverty, food security and issues relating to climate change should be given the highest concentration to find out meaningful solutions to these crises.

Durga P Paudyal said the seminar would surely enhance the knowledge on the particular issues and help formulate policies based on the suggestions for sustainable rural development.

He emphasised regional cooperation and information sharing for formulating effective policies and programmes for rural development.

Paudyal said they would place the recommendations as 'policy proposal' in the ministerial meeting to be held in November this year in Dhaka.

He said the highest authority of Cirdap is its Governing Council which consists of the ministers in charge of agriculture and rural development in the member states.

Earlier, SK Sing described the poverty scenario of India by presenting a paper on 'Rural Livelihood: An Overview.'

He said the majority of the poor people in the world live in rural areas and the world's 22 percent poor people live in India. “Rural development is the key policy issue in developing countries."