Fairs and other events

ENRD CP at the Thematic Programme Capitalisation, Workshop on Rural Development,
20 November 2013, Brussels, Belgium

Summary

The workshop thematic workshop on rural development was organized by INTERREG aiming to:

Validate the findings of the capitalisation experts and gather further information from projects on interesting practices and policies available within the involved regions that could be relevant also to other regions in Europe.
Create synergies, interactions, networking and mutual learning among the projects.

Outcomes

Among the all INTERREG IVC projects, there are nine that focus on rural development. All of these nine projects aim to improve the effectiveness of regional/local rural development policy by exchanging experiences, identifying good practices and, where possible, transferring good practices to other regions.

The INTERREG IVC rural development projects focus mostly on:

the diversification of rural areas through tourism (RURALAND and B2N by exchanging a broad range of rural development initiatives, ICER, CesR, DANTE and e-CREATE by stimulating tourism, Robinwood Plus through forest management);
using/stimulating ICT as a means to strengthen rural areas (Micropol by developing Smart Work Centers to facilitate employment, GRISI+ uses ICT to facilitate the arrival of and to attract new inhabitants to villages, DANTE and e-CREATE both use ICT to stimulate rural tourism);
sustainable development and economic development, pursuing all the targets of the Europe 2020 strategy;
stimulating development instead of tackling barriers.
All main drivers and barriers of rural development as reported in the latest EU research on growth and employment in rural areas