The Study Attachment on Rural Development
for two staff of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Affairs

Technical Resource Materials
	Full Assessment Report of the Parliamentary Centre (with the full agenda)
	Canadian Approach to Rural Development: Observations and Lessons Learned from the Chinese Perspectives Presentation delivered at the University of Guelph by Zhao Kun, Deputy Director, Research Office of the Agriculture Committee, National People’s Congress of China
	Review of Legislation Process of Farmers Co-operative Law of China Presentation delivered at the University of Saskatoon By Ms. Men Wei, Legal Analyst, Law Office of the Agriculture Committee, National People’s Congress of China

National People’s Congress
Canada-China Legislative Cooperation Project
September 7 – December 1, 2006

Adopting laws and policies to support rural development has emerged increasingly as a central theme for the cooperation with the Agriculture Committee of the NPC. This theme was chosen to support the priority of the Chinese government to promote rural development, declared recently as a cornerstone of China’s Eleventh Five-Year Plan which sets out the nation’s strategic goals for social and economic development for the five years from 2006-2010. The NPC Committee on Agriculture and Rural Affairs stands at the forefront of this national campaign, given its mandate to review a broad range of legislation and policy to ensure strategic coherence and reflection of the needs of impacted rural communities.

The theme of rural development was built into all project activities with the Agriculture Committee to date. A workshop was held in June 2005 with the Committee to explore the possibility of adopting legislation and policy enabling farmers’ cooperatives as a vehicle to increase productivity in the agricultural sector. Two study visits were organized in September and November 2005 for a number of Committee members and staff to understand the underpinnings of the Canadian model to facilitate sustained development of rural communities. Through connections with rural practitioners at various levels and grass-root community groups, the Committee members and staff were exposed to the governance mechanisms for pursuing rural policy goals that featured cross-jurisdictional coordination, public involvement and community leadership. The Chinese partners were also sensitized to the essential tools and techniques for conducting poverty analysis and gender analysis in the rural context, such as the use of disaggregated data to evaluate distinct needs of poverty-stricken groups or women.

The Committee staff have shown keen interest in continuing to conduct intensive study on the Canadian experience supporting rural development under the guidance of leading Canadian experts. The purpose of further study and research is to acquire knowledge of foundation-level theories and concepts underlying rural planning and development while synthesizing practical expertise and analytical tools that can be incorporated into the legislative and policy framework on rural issues.

The Committee highly valued this learning program as the first opportunity for the Chinese legislature to get comprehensive and in-depth exposure to the approach of a Western developed country to address rural development issues. In order to support and facilitate this initiative, the Parliamentary Centre, in conjunction with the University of Guelph Rural Planning and Development (RPD), facilitated a study attachment to Canada for two staff members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the National People’s Congress. The theme of the study visit has been identified as “Legislative and Policy Analysis to Support Rural Development”, which consists of five interlinked areas as follows:

• Overview of literature resources on the primers for rural development, including those on gender equality in the rural context, to provide a knowledge base to inform more in-depth study from the policy perspectives;
• Historical review of the evolution of rural legislation, policies and programs in Canada to reveal important lessons learned for confronting and engaging societal changes in the rural areas;
• Comparative study on examples of existing legislation, policies and programs at different levels of jurisdictions in Canada with a focus on the mechanisms for implementation and evaluation, including mechanisms for the integration of gender equality issues and impacts;
• Assessment of the potential to apply lessons learned in the Chinese context to increase the representation of poverty-stricken groups and women in rural planning and development and the effectiveness of evaluation on the rural policy and programs;
• Production of a rural development handbook for the Committee with guidelines or framework for incorporating rural impact analysis and gender analysis into policy-making or legislative drafting on issues of significant impacts on rural population.