by Mladen Stanicic, Gordon Ramsay
In many rural communities in ECTs, young men and women feel they have no hope of finding employment. Opportunities for starting their own small business are scarce, and that option is seldom considered. As a result, they move to large overcrowded cities in a search of a better life. This outmigration deepens the economic crisis in rural communities, which in turn leads to a further exodus of young men and women. The principle goal of rural development policies in ECTs should be to break this vicious circle of decline caused by high unemployment and steady outmigration. These policies must not neglect the needs of young women because in many rural regions in ECTs unemployment and outmigration rates are rising faster for young women than for young men.
In some EU countries, rural communities are also struggling to survive, not only economically but culturally, as the outmigration of young men and women continues. In the EU countries, rural development strategies designed to reverse this trend have concentrated on establishing independent community-based agencies capable of organizing their own development initiatives and taking responsibility for their implementation.
This study examines the possibilities of implementing similar rural development strategies in ECTs. The first section of this document highlights gender related problems and policy issues affecting rural youth, identifies mechanisms for increasing the participation of young men and women in rural development activities, and assesses the applicability of EC initiatives to rural areas of ECTs. This is followed by case studies from Northern Ireland (UK), Portugal and Slovenia. The case studies offer a detailed description of the background and the activities of several rural community-based development agencies and examine their relationships with national and international agencies.
Although each of the local development agencies examined in the case studies seeks to address different specific needs within their community, all of them share the general objective of raising the awareness of both the community and young men and women about their importance to the community and encouraging them to participate actively in local development initiatives. In Northern Ireland, YouthAction, a volunteer organization, concentrates on the social integration of young men and women in an area torn by an armed civil conflict. In Portugal, the United Artisan Cooperative of the Lima River Valley (ARVAL) has revived traditional methods of linen production in order to improve the socio-economic status of young women. Another Portuguese agency, the Southwest Alentejo Local Development Agency (ESDIME) and two organizations in Slovenia, Activating Local Potential (ALP) and the Students Operational Programme (SOP), offer management and vocational training programmes for young men and women and promote the growth of SMEs by providing information on local development potential and technical and financial support to entrepreneurs. Each of these agencies advocates on behalf of small local businesses and other community groups in their relationships with international, national and regional development agencies. This mediation at the local level has enhanced the effectiveness of external financial aid by ensuring that it is directed to sound development initiatives.
There is ample opportunity for similar local development agencies to contribute to rural development in the ECTs. This is especially true for farming communities that have suffered heavy job losses due to the collapse or severe downsizing of large state-run farms and cooperatives. For the foreseeable future, rural areas will continue to rely heavily on agriculture for income and employment1. If these communities are to survive, small private farms will need to succeed economically. Local development agencies can play an important role in farming communities, especially those far from large cities, by creating a support network for private farmers and providing reliable information on commodity prices, marketing opportunities and the latest agricultural techniques. They can also contribute to making agriculture an attractive option to young men and women by providing them with farm management training. Furthermore, development agencies located within farming communities are sensitive to local environmental issues and growing conditions and as such, are well placed to promote sustainable agricultural practices.
1
In ECTs, farming is more important to the overall economy that in EU countries. In ECTs, agriculture accounts for 8 percent of the GDP, whereas in EU countries only 2.5 percent of the GDP is generated by agricultural production. Over 25 percent of the active labour force in ECTs work in the agricultural sector, compared to only 6 percent in the EU (Agenda 2000, European Commission, Brussels 1997).
However, to ensure economic stability, rural communities in EU countries and ECTs need to diversify their economies and become less dependent on agriculture. The local development agencies in Portugal and Slovenia realize this and recognize that tourism, because it makes use of locally available expertise and resources, offers excellent opportunities for creating alternative income generating activities in farming communities. ARVAL's commercial successes with hand-made linen products was partly a result of the local women's ability to tap into the growing tourist market for traditional handicrafts. In Slovenia, ALP and SOP help young men and women create jobs for themselves in tourism by providing them with vocational and management training, business information and technical support for their initiatives. Campaigns promoting local tourism not only create business and employment opportunities, by highlighting the natural beauty of the countryside and the value of local traditions, they also help instil a sense of community pride in local young men and women.
All of the development agencies examined in the case studies receive assistance from international development programmes. YouthAction in Northern Ireland and ARVAL and ESDIME in Portugal obtain financial and technical support from a variety of EU programmes. Although community groups in ECTs do not have access to the full range of European Commission (EC) development programmes, support is available through the EC's Phare and STRUDER programmes and from the World Bank. These former two programmes provided valuable assistance to the development initiatives carried out in Slovenia by ALP.
The case studies show, however, that community-based development organizations do not necessarily need international funding to be effective. It is cooperation with national government bodies that is fundamental to their operations. In Northern Ireland, YouthAction works closely with the Education and Agriculture Ministries. Before Portugal became a member of the EU, ESDIME received financial support from the Ministry of Professional Training and Development. Similarly, in Slovenia, ALP's success is due not just to international financial support, but to its collaboration with two national agencies, the National Employment Office (NEO) and the National Small Business Centre (NSBC). Furthermore, both Portuguese development agencies have partly reduced their dependence on external funding by generating their own revenue.
In former communist countries, the highly centralized state-controlled economic system has left in its wake national governments that have little experience in working and consulting with other groups concerning development initiatives, and local administrations and community groups that have little experience in initiating and coordinating rural development activities. Therefore, a necessary first step in implementing a bottom up approach to rural development in ECTs is for national governments to abandon their top down management practices. They will need to implement programmes capable of nurturing grass-roots organizations from above so that these local groups later can become effective partners at managing development initiatives from below. This process will require that administrators at all levels, local, regional and national, receive professional training.
In ECTs, the priority of the central governments has not been local development initiatives in rural communities. This is not surprising given the size and complexity of the problems governments face in transforming a state-run economy into a free-market one. These reforms affect the country's entire economic performance as well as its general entrepreneurial climate and as a result, they also greatly influence the rural development initiatives undertaken by development agencies at the local level. The growth of private farms and other small agro-businesses will depend on the pace at which agricultural lands are privatized and on measures taken to resolve conflicts between landowners and landless farmers. Farmers who want to modernize their operations and rural entrepreneurs who want to start alternative business ventures must have easy access to credit. This will require deep changes in the way rural banking systems operate and the creation of national programmes offering financial incentives to SMEs. These broad structural reforms need to be completed before local development agencies can successfully provide young men and women in rural communities with an attractive alternative to a life in the city.
