What’s Wrong With Rural Policy
and How Might We Fix It?
David Freshwater
University of Kentucky
CRRF/NRRN/NRE joint conference
Gatineau, Quebec
October 26,2006
Laboratories of Democracy
• David Osborne
– Advocated devolution - 50 states
conducting policy experiments
– With 50 experiments surely some will be
successful and can be emulated
• Missing idea
– In laboratory failed experiments provide
information
– Why did we fail?
outline
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Context
Six Reasons for failure
Policy conundrums
Policy progress
Where do we go now?
context
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Declining role of rural
Demography as destiny
Open economy - new idea or old news
Macro-policy swamps rural policy
Paradox of major NGO engagement rural development for whom?
Six reasons for policy failure
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Path dependency
Myopia
Political compromise
Defective knowledge
Desire for universality
Overestimation of capacity
Confounding concepts
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Role of agriculture
Manufacturing is passé
Regional or rural
Labor force up-skilling or “education pays”
Specialization vs. diversification
Balancing subsidiarity and failure
The way forward - locally
based development
• Models we know work
• Community Futures
• LEADER
• Enterprise Communities
• Why do we ignore models that work
• 6 reasons
• Resolved local impediments but not national
• What will cause us to change?
a new perspective
• OECD approach to
improving rural
policy
• Reflects information
from a large number
of member countries
• Experience based
New and old policies
The 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 (supranational,
national, regional and local), various
local stakeholders (public, private, NGOs)
source: OECD The New Rural Paradigm , 2006, p. 9
Lessons from LEADER II
Factors for success
Challenges
Efficiency
Adaptability to every rural socioeconomic and governance context
A too short implementation time
A disempowering administrative environment
Capacity to bring local actors, administrations
and support structures closer together
Ability to mobilise additional efforts of
commited local actors
Responsiveness to small-scale activities
and projects
The prior existence of similar initiatives at
the local level
Lessons from LEADER II
Factors for success
Challenges
Effectiveness
The closing of the gap between a top-down
programme and locla needs/aspirations
A too short implementation time
A disregard of the bottom-up approach
A mentality change from passive to active
attitude
The responsibility conveyed to local partnerships
Direct and indirect effects on strategic issues
(ex. Job creationand new investments in key
sectors)
A weak and unrepresentative local partnership
and local actors
Lessons from LEADER II
Factors for success
Challenges
Sustainability
New avenues for creating added value or
synergies between existing value added chains
The disruption of the local partnership and of
technicla assistance by cutting funds abruptly
at the end of the period
Capacity building at the local level
High fluctuation rate of key actors
Increased public-private cooperation
Integration of environmental concerns
A European, yet global perspective
The continued dominane of a single sector or of
public actors in the local partnership
The relativley small size and impact of the
intervention compared to other influence factors
Rural spatial context
• Regional cities
– Polycentric city with integrated rural space
– Urban-rural fringe issues
– Where most rural people live
• Remote rural
– Market town - symbiosis
– Nodal Communities - independent but
dependent
Provincial and State
government focus
• Principle example of path dependency - rely
primarily on the national government for rural
policy
– National governments deal with sectors
– Provincial/State governments deal with people
and communities
• Local government is a creature of
provincial/state government
• Local public services are driven by provincial
and state decisions
Where do we go now?
• Learn from our mistakes
• Have a set of models, but need to refine them
and fully implement them
• Recognize that location is important and that
rural is more than remote
• Accept that different rural interests have their
own values - “big tent” approach
• Guard against the 6 causes of policy failure
• “Sell rural” to urban Canada and America