Rural Development Institute (RDI) is one of the institutes of the College of Development Studies (CDS) of Addis Ababa University (AAU) launched on March 2007. The central mission of the IRD is providing education, research and community services in the areas of rural development. Rural development involves economic, social, technological, institutional, environmental, political and cultural dimensions. Rural development aims at transformation of the agriculture-dominated rural sector for betterment of the wellbeing of the rural population and development of the national economy. The RDI focuses mainly on poverty, livelihood and food security, agricultural–agro-pastoral–and –pastoral development, non-farm sector, infrastructure and social services and associated policies and institutions.