New realities, new challenges: new opportunities for tomorrow's generation. That is the latest Rural Poverty Report issued by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

According to the report, this is where we stand in 2010. The global population is 6.7 billion people, out of which, the report says 1.4 billion live in extreme poverty. More than 70 per cent of them live in rural areas of developing countries. Nearly one billion do not have enough to eat.

The report also says that the population of the developing world is still more rural than urban and it claims better governance is the key to promoting rural growth and reducing poverty.

Inside Story, with presenter Hazem Sika, discusses the causes of the rising rates in rural poverty and ways to combat it.

Joining the programme are Edward Heinemann, the team leader and coordinator of the Rural Poverty report, Chetan Sharma, a senior financial journalist, and Calestous Juma, a professor of the practice of international development at Harvard University.

This episode of Inside Story aired from Monday, December 6, 2010.