IAMO Forum 2010

The IAMO Forum 2010 aims to take stock of current research on institutional change in agriculture and rural areas and of the corresponding challenge for new modes of governance. The regional focus is on Central and Eastern Europe as well as Central and East Asia. At the same time it wants to spell out lessons learned from recent experience and update the agenda of policy makers in agriculture and rural affairs.

Unexpected drivers such as the swings in global food prices and the consequences of economic recession, as well as foreseeable ones such as demographic developments or migration call for new modes of governance for various economic and social transactions. Modes of governance are contracts, networks, bureaucracy, cooperation or markets, in other words the organisational solutions for making institutions effective and guaranteeing rights and duties.
New modes of governance refer not only to the process of policy formulation (requirements for impact assessments and integrated modelling) and to the design of policies (decentralization, bottom-up initiatives), but also to the coordination of agricultural input and output markets (energy, credit, labour, food, fibre, landscape). In this respect, the management of natural resources such as land, water, biodiversity plays a crucial role. Moreover, challenges of social safety systems in rural areas require particular innovative governance structures. Last but not least, new modes of governance call for further development of theoretical concepts and methods in analysing institutional changes and their outcomes.