IMPLEMENTING CHANGE:

A NEW LOCAL AGENDA FOR

JOBS AND GROWTH In co-operation with the EU Presidency, Irish Government and Pobal

26-27 March 2013, Dublin-Kilkenny, Ireland

9th Annual Meeting

WORKSHOP C: EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL INCLUSION IN RURAL AREAS

Betty-Ann Bryce Public Governance and Territorial Development Directorate, OECD

Increasing employment opportunities in rural areas

Workshop C: Employment and social exclusion in rural areas Betty-Ann Bryce Rural and Regional Programme Regional Development Policy Division Public Governance and Territorial Development Directorate

Two principles characterise the “new rural paradigm”:

1.  a focus on places instead of sectors and

2.  a focus on investments instead of subsidies.

OECD New Rural Paradigm…

Old approach New approach

Objectives Equalisation, farm income, farm competitiveness

Competitiveness of rural areas, valorisation of local assets, exploitation of unused resources

Key target sector Agriculture

Various sectors of rural economies (ex. rural tourism, manufacturing, ICT industry, etc.)

Main tools Subsidies Investments

Key actors National governments, farmers

All levels of government (supra-national, national, regional and local), various local stakeholders (public, private, NGOs)

1.  Adopt a holistic approach to the rural economy – modernise the rural economy

2. Encourage expenditure on priority economic sectors (areas of opportunity) to enable diversification e.g. Tourism, local foods.

3. Support skill building initiatives e.g skills needed for priority sectors

Encouraging job creation in rural areas: policy responses

Rural areas: Opportunities and threats

Opportunities

•  Cutting-edge tourism strategies

•  Reimagining forests

•  Renewable energy

•  Local food strategies

Threats •  Impacts on single

industry towns

•  Demographic change

•  Climate change effects

•  Declining local fiscal capacity

Opportunity Highlights Cutting-edge tourism

•  Important for communities to “differentiate product”

•  Tie tourism to other activities – agriculture or nearby urban opportunities

•  Governments can help define integrated regional and provincial strategies that include rural venues

Reimagining forests •  Recognize the recreational use of forests •  Forests can produce valuable non-timber products •  Model Forests can provide useful management

ideas

Opportunity Highlights Renewable Energy

•  Almost all renewable energy is produced in a rural setting

•  Communities have to be proactive if they want to maximize local benefits from energy projects

•  Limited transmission capacity can “lock in” power making it less valuable

Local Food Strategies •  Local food may be a larger market than organic food •  Local food builds urban and rural cohesion •  Local food has to be integrated into the total food

supply system

1.  Encourage “ Rurban” – rural-urban Partnerships

2.  Improve rural business related services e.g. financing (access to venture capital) loan programmes, ICT etc.

3.  Encourage innovative service delivery schemes with fiscal incentives and regulation: there are areas that the private sectors can be encourage to enter increasing employment opportunities.

Policy response: encouraging job creation in rural areas

Flexibility in identifying service providers

•  Flexibility in “who” provides the services. The inclusion and active participation of a wide range of stakeholders is proving indispensable for improving rural service delivery. In particular, NGOs, private businesses, financial institutions, and citizens. –  Public-private partnerships, are being increasingly applied for the

provision of public services in rural Spain. This scheme has the advantage of mobilising new resources for both infrastructure and services in rural areas.

–  La Caixa, one of Spain’s leading savings bank, recently set itself the social objective to “develop the rural territory with the aim of maintaining the rural population as well as providing inhabitants with a standard of living similar to that of urban areas.

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