New Prospects for Peripheral Rural Regions Helmut Hiess Glasgow, 19th of May 2010

Transcription

1 New Prospects for Peripheral Rural Regions Helmut Hiess Glasgow, 19th of May 2010

2 ÖROK: Organisation & Tasks Austrian Conference on Spatial Planning (ÖROK, since 1971): Joint organisation by Federal level, Länder, Cities, Municipalities and Social and Economic partners Both political and administrative representation Political agreement, no legal entity Supported by secretariat Tasks & Products: Coordination of measures with spatial impact Austrian Spatial Development Concept Research (Studies on issues of spatial relevance) Policy recommendations Information & Publicity (Atlas, Reports,...) National Contact Point for European Territorial Cooperation Programmes, ESPON Secretariat for ERDF-programmes (objective regional competitiveness) 2

3 The team Rosinak & Partner: regional and spatial planning, traffic and transportation planning, environmental assessments Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Regionalberatung: Network of consultants for regional development; in charge of the LEADER Network contact point in Austria Federal Institute for Less Favoured and Mountainous Areas: Research Institute funded partly by the Austrian government

4 Objectives and tasks of the project Development of new opportunities and options for peripheral rural regions Elaboration of recommendations for action Utilisation of the project as communication platform for stakeholders, developers, planners, top down and bottom up initiatives

5 Methods and workflow Interviews Persons with special view points Status of theoretical knowledge Empirical data analysis Development of hypotheses and core areas of innovation Presentation and discussion with local stakeholders in peripheral rural areas Collection of good practise examples Recommendations for action

6 Rural regions between exodus and dynamic Rural regions with growing population and employment: suburban areas and regions characterized by intense tourism Rural regions with growing population but shrinking employment: regions with good accessibility to urban workplaces residential areas with high outcommuter share Rural regions with shrinking population and employment: peripheral regions in the southern and eastern parts of Austria s alpine region and along the former iron curtain

7 Population projection 2031

8 Development of working places (%)

9 Fields of actions for rural development Economic structure, education and training Traditional fields of attention Institutional framework, governance Natural resources and environmental quality Infrastructure and accessibility Social and cultural structure Hypothesis: Innovation needs all fields of action Innovation is needed in all fields of action Focus of the project

10 Fields of innovation: Social and cultural structures (1) Exploiting social diversity Innovation in peripheral rural areas requires the enlargement of social spaces to the existing diversity with respect to age, gender, origin, levels of knowledge Innovation requires to be open minded to ideas, persons, incentives from outside: think global act local Equal opportunities for women in politics, education and professional career requires change in male attitudes and behaviour Immigration has to bee seen as opportunity and not as threat Public awareness is a key factor

11 Fields of innovation: Institutional framework, governance (2) Inter-communal cooperation and coordination Bundling the strengths of municipalities requires to overcome parish-pump politics Development of high quality locations for business activities in regional centres instead of competition between the municipalities The management of collaborations needs organisational development skills, professional support for the set up of cooperation and incentives for sharing costs and returns among several municipalities or public / private partnerships Strengthen the framework for cooperation with carrot and stick

12 Fields of innovation: Natural resources and environmental quality (3) Land use and changes to cultural landscapes Nature protection areas have to be seen as opportunity to preserve high diversity of cultural landscape New wilderness areas could be an asset to tourism activities Preservation of cultural landscape must be of national interest. Support by public funds have to be accepted.

13 Recommendations for action: Social diversity 1. Transform political objectives in the area of social diversity into operational measures - specific funds in budgets - establishment in the structures of regional development organisations - set up of regular evaluation procedures 2. Establish social diversity pilot projects and enlarge specific educational measures - tailor-made educational measures - integration in regional development programmes and budgets - support of pilot projects

14 Recommendations for action: Inter-communal cooperation 3. Set up structures for deepening of inter-communal cooperation - municipality equalization funds - bilateral agreements on sharing costs and returns - establishment of special purpose organisations 4. Enlarge cooperation competences and reinforce the culture of cooperation - support for professional management of cooperation processes - reinforcement of cooperation competences by educational opportunities

15 Recommendations for action: Land use and cultural landscape 5. Exploit environmental quality as a potential in peripheral regions - development of strategies to secure multi-functional land use - transform the issue of shaping landscape development into a regional policy task 6. Achieve landscape diversity through differentiated land use - utilisation of nature protection to preserve landscape diversity - discuss wilderness as asset for tourism activities - establish equalisation funds to share costs and returns of intensification and extensification of land use within and between regions

16 Good Practise Learning from the best (1) Use of EU-funded programmes: LEADER, INTERREG, ESF Learning from experiences of projects funded in the past by the European Social Fund and INTERREG under the headline Gender Mainstreaming between Use of current and future programmes: e. g. LEADER focus on social development in Austria (2) RURAL IN Network for integration of immigrants in rural areas of Europe (3) Regionext the Styrian modal of regional development: support for organisational development to a group of municipalities to develop and implement joint projects (4) INKOBA Inter-communal cooperation for common enterprise locations (5) National Park Val Grande (Italy): Differentiated land use between cultivation and wilderness

17 The hope: Create a positive feed back loop Social and cultural diversity: Open minded attitudes Equal opportunities for women Openness to immigrants, minorities Cooperative governance structures: Participation of all groups Integration of all interests and talents High quality of social life Identification with the community and the region Attract others to come Develop innovation to survive in the region Invest in the region Reduction of outmigration of the best We have no evidence that this approach will work, but we know that it will not work without! Return of outmigrants

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