(a) The General Assembly finds and declares that:

(1) Federal, state, and local resources and individual effort available to address rural needs are often isolated and limited to individual symptoms of blight and deterioration. Related programs are frequently inaccessible to the residents they are designed to serve. The placement of such programs within the various organizational structures is indistinct and many localities have inadequate numbers of managerial, professional, or technical personnel to pursue such assistance. Additionally, many public and private agencies also lack adequate staffing to adapt programs and services to the special needs and requirements of citizens and their environs. This situation has contributed to a growing confusion and disintegrating force that discourages coordinated individual policy and program development and delivery of services intended to address the needs of rural localities and citizens. Consequently, the energies and resources of the many individual federal, state, and local, public, and private initiatives that could help answer rural needs and capitalize on the strengths of these areas are often frustrated or diminished in their effort;

(2) An important role and challenge for state government, therefore, is to get diverse groups to work together for the betterment of Arkansas and to combine their efforts in imaginative ways to the end that all regions of the state may always offer the highest possible quality of life and cultural and material standards of living without sacrificing individual freedom or responsibility. The General Assembly believes that such individual efforts can be significantly enhanced and can support and sustain each other in the public interest, and many useful and innovative responses to rural needs will be possible if a more focused and coordinated interdisciplinary approach for addressing these problems and opportunities is made available through state government;

(3) The General Assembly seeks to amplify the efforts of existing agencies and individuals who are interested in such rural policy areas as economic development and employment, local government and management, business, agriculture, environment, land use, natural resources, community revitalization, human services and community life, health care, education, transportation, community facilities, and housing; and

(4) Since no state office has been specifically created to promote, harmonize, or assist efforts to address the unique needs, conditions, and strengths of rural areas of the state, it is, therefore, the intent of the General Assembly to create the Arkansas Rural Development Commission and the Rural Services Division of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. The division shall serve as the focal point for generating rural development policy initiatives for the State of Arkansas.

(b) The division shall:

(1) Serve as a single contact point for rural governments, service providers, state and federal agencies, and for individuals interested in rural policies and programs of the state;

(2) Strive to promote cooperative and integrated efforts among such agencies and programs that are designed to address rural needs; and

(3) Recommend to the Governor and to the General Assembly the suitable use of policies, programs, long-range plans, laws, and regulatory mechanisms in order to meet such needs.