SUSTAINABLE RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN TURKEY

EYÜP ZENGIN - AHMET İÇEN - MEHMET ALI EROĞLU

ABSTRACT

Sustainable development is a kind of development that provides our recent needs without
harming the next generations’ ability to meet their own needs in the future. Moreover,
Sustainable development is a term providing both using natural sources efficiently
and giving importance to the environmental quality including ecological balance and
economic balance. In a country, ecological development, economic development and
social development should be considered together to create a sustainable development.
How best to approach sustainable development has been increasingly becoming very
significant issue in recent years all over the world because the population has also been
increasing and accordingly the need of the people has gained importance. Therefore,
people have begun to consume the environment unconsciously. As for Turkey, rural
development has been considered as an important policy instrument besides agricultural
development policy devices since 1970’s in Turkey, but unfortunately it can be said either
that problems in rural areas have been solved or that the projects’ objectives have been
satisfactorily achieved. In this paper we will discuss sustainable development and its
roles in the world, as well as its different meaning and sample applications of rural
development, especially, in Turkey.