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The government addresses the issue of poverty through economic and social reforms. Romania’s government has undertaken an extensive programme of legal reform and investment incentives for the privatization and rehabilitation of the nation’s substantial industrial, agricultural and commercial base. The National Plan for Agriculture and Rural Development prepared in 1999 was strongly oriented towards membership in the EU.

The government’s strategy for rural development in the long neglected, non-collectivized rural communes has three aims:

• rehabilitate, strengthen or establish basic physical facilities and social services, through public sector investment and external grant financing
• encourage small commercial farming enterprises and cottage industries, through a combination of limited capital support from government and financing through commercial credit
• provide the regulatory and promotional services required to stimulate development and coordinate bilateral development initiatives, through the Directorate General for Rural Development of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, and the National Agency for Regional Development

The Apuseni Development Project was the government’s first initiative in tackling the problems of poverty and underdevelopment in disadvantaged mountain areas through an investment programme. The Ministry of Public Finance and the Ministry of Agriculture played key roles in implementing IFAD’s sole initiative in Romania.

Source: IFAD