Rural development
Rural development is a general terms used to denote the actions and initiatives taken to improve the standard of living in non-Urban neighbourhoods, countryside, and remote villages. These communities can be exemplified with a low ratio of inhabitants to open space. Agricultural activities may be prominent in this case whereas economic activities would relate to the primary sector, production of foodstuffs and raw materials.
Development actions
Rural development actions mostly aim at the social and economic development of the areas. These programmes are usually top-down from the local or regional authorities, regional development agencies, NGOs, national governments or international development organisations. But then, local populations can also bring about endogenous initiatives for development. The terms is not limited to the issues for developing countries. In fact many of the developed countries have very active rural development programmes.