Administrative and Academic Setup
RDA is an autonomous institution governed by a Board of Governors of which the Minister for Local Government, Rural Development Cooperatives (LGRDC) is the Chairman and Director General of the Academy is the Member-Secretary. Administratively RDA is attached to the Rural Development and Cooperatives Division of the Ministry of LGRDC. The chief executive of the Academy is the Director-General who is assisted by an Additional Director General. There are four Directors to look after Administration; Training, Research and Evaluation; Agricultural Science and Social Science Divisions. Other positions include; Additional Directors (4), Joint Directors (10), Deputy Director (16), and Assistant Director (22). The Faculty Members are assisted by about 250 supporting staff.
Since rural development is inter-disciplinary in nature, the Faculty Members are recruited from different disciplines. The Major disciplines are: Public Administration, Economics, Sociology, Anthropology, Demography, Education, Geography, Accounting, Statistics, Agricultural Engineering, Fisheries, Livestock, Agricultural Economics, Agronomy, Horticulture, Computer Science & Engineering etc.
Major Activities
Training, research and action research are the three major activities of the Academy. However, these three activities are closely related. The aims of research are to study rural development problems and the solutions to those problems are sought through action research projects.
Therefore, RDA is engaged in several types of action research to find out replaceable models for rural development. The findings of research and field experiences of action research are used as training materials.
Annual Planning Conference ( APC)
All activities related to especially research, training and action research are systematically planned in a conference regularly organized in each year ( during July-August). This Annual Planning conference ( APC) is attended by top policy makers ,representatives from leading training and research institutions of the country, universities and like ministries of the government. The first day of the APC is devoted to annual reports on achievement major activities of the Academy like research, training and action research presented by concerned Directors with their observations. On the second day, the conference workout a plan for the next year proposed by the Directors and supplemental and reviewer by the participants in the APC. At the end, the APC finalizes the the list of research studies, prepared a yearly training programmes and recommended their observations on the activities of experimental research and us of the Academy. So the APC is said to be the most popular why of planned management for the Academy.