This text discusses the coherence between reciprocity or gift economy practises and local development policies in Brazilian Northeast rural communities. In the Sertào rural communities, no merchant economic relations (mutual help, free work) and community management of collective goods or resources coexist with a partial market integration characteristic of peasant societies. These practises, traditional or re-adapted to the actual context, are mostly unrecognised by local development projects, even by organisational support proposals (association, co-operative, community development) or community goods management (commons lands, water resources). In the same way, the forms of representation and local power associated to these practises and logics, are ignored or misunderstood. The text presents some cases of incoherence or contradiction between public policies and rural communities tentative to actualise the traditional forms of reciprocity in the modern context.