NRN Self-Assessment Profiles

UK - Northern Ireland

The UK has taken a unique approach to structuring its national rural network (NRN) in accordance with the requirements of the EAFRD Regulation.  A two tier system has been implemented which consists of four regional rural networks which operate in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales under the umbrella of the UK National Rural Network.

The Rural Network Northern Ireland (RNNI) is a membership organisation with 180 members – the majority of whom are involved in the delivery of the Rural Development Programme (RDP) for Northern Ireland.  The activities of the network are resourced wholly through the regional budget of the government for Northern Ireland without the use of EAFRD match funding.  The Annual Work Plan of the RNNI is designed to be flexible allowing the network to operate on a needs-led basis.

The network support unit (NSU) is outsourced to the independent Northern Ireland Rural Development Council (RDC) and is supported by the advisory services of Agri Rural Forum that includes organisations representing all aspects of the RDP such as the Ulster Famers Union, Rural Community Network and the Northern Ireland Environment Link.  The agricultural, economic and community sectors are all quite distinct in Northern Ireland and it was hoped that this forum would provide a more robust cross-sectoral approach to networking.

The Managing Authority (MA) in Northern Ireland is DARD – the ‘Department of Agriculture and Rural Development’.  DARD is claimed to have a good understanding of the value of networking and to recognise that the RNNI proactively supports delivery of the RDP. 

Against this background, the RDC has not developed a formal framework for assessing the effectiveness of its networking activities and it does not routinely collect any data on monitoring indicators - although qualitative feedback is always collected after events etc. Please see Existing Tools Used by NRNs for Self-Assessment for an example.

The RDC has a place on the RDP Monitoring Committee for Northern Ireland and insisted that questions were included on the RNNI in the stakeholder survey that was undertaken as part of the 2010 Mid-term Evaluation of the RDP.  Feedback from stakeholders on the performance of the network was positive:  “It is evident throughout discussions and the research programme that the Rural Network Northern Ireland (RNNI) has clearly helped to contribute to establishing good rural development practice in Northern Ireland…”

More recently, DARD completed a review of the Network at the end of 2011 as part of a contract extension requirement with the RDC.

• 2010 Mid-Term Evaluation Report of the Northern Irish RDP [PDF ]