1
Rurban: Rural-Urban Partnership for
Sustainable Development
Sustainable Urban Fringes (SURF) Project Dissemination
Conference
27-28 June 2012, Aberdeen City Council
Sabrina Lucatelli
DG REGIO, Directorate for Policy Conception and Coordination
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An Issue Based Approach to Rural-Urban Partnerships
Urban development can have negative social and environmental
consequences in many EU peri-urban rural areas: « Urban
Sprawl » (Pluriel Project)
Strong Rural/Agricultural Land pressure in both developing and
developed countries – housing issue - (FAO, OECD, European Commission)
Small and medium sized cities can be quite dynamic! (OECD and
Canada)
Difficulties in accessing social services in remote rural areas (5th
Cohesion Report, EDORA-ESPON)
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Strong and bidirectional relationships between urban and rural areas can
generate positive externalities and improve economic competitiveness
• Several functional linkages: Demographic; Environmental-natural resources
management; Economic and innovative transactions, Delivery of public
services
• Three Main Spatial categories (OECD):
– Metropolitan regions and peri-urban rural areas
– Networks of small and medium-sized cities
– Sparsely populated areas with market towns
Rural-Urban Partnerships as a possible “tool” with multiple and flexible
governance solutions
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• Metropolitan regions: Rural Areas as service providers
for the urban regions
and urban areas supporting and providing services to rural
surroundings
• Networks of small and medium-sized cities:
Rural Areas act as semi-autonomous growth poles but depend
on urban centres for specialised services and for accessing
larger markets
• Sparsely populated areas with market towns:
Rural Areas are the engine of growth. The regional economy
depends on resources located in rural areas with small towns
acting as market points
Three Spatial Dimensions
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Partnership Fundamental Ingredients
• Common strategy and vision
• Cooperation (Spontaneous!)
• Mutual benefits (Recognising what rural areas can offer)
• Governance solutions (More or less formal)
• Long term (They need time!)
• Project based (Local shared)
• Participation
What role for policy
intervention?
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Existing Good Practices
- Le Pays du Man, 48 Municipalities organised around a common
territory « Un Bassin de Vie » - Leader
- Amsterdam, Hamburg, Montreal, Nuremberg and Rennes
Metropolitan Regions
- Integrated Territorial Projects in Italy
- Creating Medium size cities network at Luxembourg and
French Border “Projet Alzette-Belval”
- The New Bridges Project – 7 rural-urban co-operations in the
Baltic region
Connections to shaping rural-urban interactions not always explicit!
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What the existing policy obstacles?
- Not enough territorial attention and territorial analysis
capacities (especially at functional regional level)
- Rural policies versus Urban policies …
- Not appropriate policy integration between Regional policy,
Rural development policy and other policies
- Absence of “higher level” incentives … especially for intramunicipal
cooperation
- Not appropriate capacity to delegate policy building at local level
- Not strongly enough developed « Rural Voice » and rural (not
sectoral) partnership/governance (small and not coordinated
municipalities)
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RURBAN Parliament/EC Preparatory Action
General Objective:
- to identify and assess formal and informal partnership
practices for towns/cities and rural areas and
- the role that these partnerships can play in regional
“sustainable” development and in bridging the
coordination gap in policies form urban and rural dwellers
- To analyse the form and the functions of these partnerships to
promote territorial multilevel governance
TO CREATE A BRIDGE BETWEEN
REGIONAL POLICY AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY
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1. A preparatory study building up on existing bibliography
(ESPON; OECD; DG Regio Seminars; TA)
2. A comprehensive study covering cases of urban-rural
partnerships in the 4 main EU macro geographical areas
(EC/OECD)
3. Analytical framework for defining functional regions
(EC/OECD)
4. A final Conference + 2 regional workshops Metz 15-16
November!
5. One VIDEO showing main Rurban results
Continuous dialogue with stakeholders
(COTER, Eurocities, Metrex, Red, Purple)
Two main actions: study & results diffusion
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A Preparatory Study - Partnership for Sustainable
rural-urban development: existing evidences
• Urban-rural partnerships (or forms thereof) across
Europe Moro; Surf; Purple; Hinterland
• Basic Ingredients for Partnership (a project based
approach, time and governance!)
• “Research oriented” versus “Action oriented”
• Several already existing cases: what role for cohesion
policy?
• Starting from existing “policy” failures, facilitating and
spreading good governance
The study is available on InfoRegio Web Site - Rurban
• different demands and goals
• different economic power (GDP/empl.: PR = 74 % of PU)
• different management capacities
• prejudices (parasitism, free raiders)
• administrative additional burden
• no statistically proven surplus value
• municipal legal power
• additional concept for space
• no altruism
Many good reasons against
partnerships between unequal places
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OECD: Partnerships and Rural-Urban
Relationships
• A methodological framework to assess rural-urban
linkages in functional areas;
• Administrative regions versus Functional regions
• Measuring rural-urban linkages – Status and Results
Measures (e.g. for services organisation and implementation)
• Different categories of rural-urban functional regions
• Main impact of partnership is to improve local governance
by stimulating the uptake of public programmes in a
manner consistent with locally shared priority
• complementary potentials
• partly similar/same potentials
• problems to be solved
• management of linkages and flows
• bringing together regions, actors, funds
• via projects and a strategy
• mutual benefit, no free riders, synergies
• additional output for redistribution
• (economic, quality of life)
• no “beggar thy neighbour”
• win-win and conflict management
Many good reasons for
partnerships between different places
http://ec.euopa.eu/regional
_policy/wht/cohesion/urban
_rural/index_en.cfm
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8 EU Case Studies + 1 Extra EU
• Large Metropolitan Regions: Rennes,
Nuremberg and Prague
• Network of Small and Mediums sized cities:
Brabant (Netherlands); Cesena-Forli Emilia Romagna Region
(Italy); Greelong Region, Victoria (Australia)
• Sparsely Populated Areas with market
Towns: District of Castel Branco (Portugal)/Extremadura
(Spain); SaariJärvi-Viitasaari Region (Finland) and
WestPomeranian region (Poland)
Formal/Informal Partnerships
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8 EU Case Studies + 1 Extra EU
In order for partnerships to contribute to the policy development
process, they need to:
•have a strong influence on multi-level and cross-sector
collaboration.
•have a receptive attitude on the part of policy makers in regional,
national and supranational government institutions
•work on the basis of sound local knowledge and expertise,
•use local data and indicators;
•adopt a flexible strategic approach that goes beyond the delivery
of projects and programmes
•be able to enhance policy outcomes through appropriate
monitoring and evaluation
•Interact with/linked to the national level
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Future Opportunities
- A stronger territorial approach for Cohesion Policy: Territorial
Cohesion Objective
- Common Strategic Framework and One Partnership Contract
for all Structural Funds and major attention to Funds Coordination
- How to translate Territorial Cohesion Objective within National and
regional programmes, taking into consideration urban-rural linkages
- Reinforcing local development in regional policy and opening to
pluri-funds local projects
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Territorial Cooperation
• Separate Regulation
• Increase of financial resources (+30%)
• 75% co-financing rate
• Concentration of programmes on up to 4 thematic
objectives
• Interregional cooperation has to promote exchange
of experience in the field of sustainable urban and
rural development
The European Regional Development FundEuropean Union
Gordon McIntosh
Director of Enterprise, Planning and Infrastructure,
Aberdeen City Council.