2nd Annual International Small Town and Rural Development Conference (STARDEC-2019)

CALL FOR PAPERS:

2^nd Annual International Small Town and Rural Development Conference (STARDEC-2019)

August 05-08, 2019

Theme: Rural and Community Development in Digital Age

The Center for Rural Affairs and Community Development (CERACODE) welcomes regional, national and international speakers, presenters and participants to small town and rural development conference. The conference will bring together practitioners, policy makers, community leaders, rural development specialists, researchers interested in rural areas across the country and beyond. This conference is a unique opportunity to share your own success, learn from a diverse group of individuals and listen to the latest issues that matter to communities and people who call rural home. This conference is with the aims of reflecting on innovations and development for the rural communities and other relevant normative, empirical, and theoretical concerns, implementation, strategies, management and policies that are distinctive to promote and sustain rural economies.

In this current era whereby social, economic and political activities are dependent on information and communication technologies, transitioning to a digital mind-set is a must, especially for rural communities as the application of digitalization such as crowdfunding, telehealth, online education are becoming critical for community development and quality of life of rural dwellers. It is pertinent to get to know and assess how digital technology is changing the nature and context of rural areas and practices of community development. Also, how have digital technologies affected community development practices and the innovative ways in which community development has utilised these for positive social change and or economic development?

The conference creates forum for researchers to share views, opinions and findings on activities that facilitate developments in rural communities. Participants will as well disseminate their research to a wide audience of scholars and practitioners in Africa and beyond. The conference provides an opportunity to showcase topics critical to rural development in a way that facilitates discussion of new ideas and moves ideas to action. It is expected that participants will provide innovative ways that rural areas across the state and beyond will find ways to drive economies, increase wealth of rural areas and improve the lives of rural residents. This 2019 annual conference, to be held in Iba, State of Osun, Nigeria at the Center for Rural Affairs and Community Development from the 5th to the 8th of August 2019, is in the process of receiving submissions from prospective participants. We invite you to submit your high quality papers on any of the topics of interest to the 2019 conference below which include (but are not limited to) innovative programs in related to rural or community development and sustainability:

Digital Agriculture and Sustainable Rural Future	Technology and Rural Education
New technologies and Digitization in Rural regions	ICT in marginalized communities
ICT, Agriculture, and Food Production	Rural Healthcare and Innovation
Urban-rural relations and synergies	Crowdfunding
Youth and Technology	Rural Entrepreneurship
Opportunity Structures in Rural Areas	Gender and Rural Development
Rural Finance	Telehealth
Rural Livelihoods	Agribusiness
Rural Policy	Agriculture and Rural Development
Rural Private Sector Development	Community Based Rural Development
Rural Transport	Employment in Agriculture
Rural Water Supply	Agricultural Trade
Technology and Innovation	Agricultural Risk Management
Forests and Forestry	Economic Development
Land and Food Security	Innovative Governance
Economy and Social Aspect of Rural Development	Irrigation and Drainage
Place-based cooperation and sharing among farmers	Land Policy and Administration

Important Dates

April 30^th 2019	·	Full Paper Submission
May 31^st 2019	·	Review Result Returned
June 15^th 2019	·	Final Paper Submission

How to Submit Papers

Submit your paper electronically through our online submission system https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=stardec2019 on or before April 30^th, 2019. STARDEC 2019 submissions, publication and editorial committee will maintain very strict rules on submission formats and deadlines (Font: New Times Roman 12, Abstract: Not more than 300 words, Maximum number of full paper Pages: 10, Reference: APA format).

A formal notification of paper acceptance will only be issued after authors have addressed reviewer’s comments as recommended by the review process. For papers to appear in the proceedings, at least one author must register and pay the registration fee applicable to his/her category of presentation. Letters of Invitation to STARDEC 2019 will only be issued after author(s) registration has been confirmed. An online and hard copy version of the conference proceedings for all submission categories shall be made available. Authors of some selected papers will be requested to submit extended versions of their work for publication in an edited book.

For consideration for the best paper award in any of the submission categories, full manuscript must be submitted by June 15th 2019. For all accepted papers, a PowerPoint Version of the camera-ready paper must be submitted by June 20th, 2019. The STARDEC PowerPoint Template will be sent along with Notification of Acceptance letter to all authors whose papers/abstracts are accepted for presentation and inclusion in the conference proceedings.

We look forward to receiving your submissions in the different categories to this very opportune conference.