Rural Proofing: a foresight framework for resilient rural communities
On 4 May 2017, the European Committee of the Regions’ Commission (CoR) for Natural Resources (NAT) and the Rurality-Environment-Development (RED) international association held a conference in Brussels entitled “RURAL post-2020: more ambitious, more transversal! A Rural Agenda to re-enchant the European project”. One of the aims of the conference was to discuss rural development policies and more particularly how to implement rural proofing, a concept introduced in the Cork Declaration 2.0, adopted in September 2016.
Rural proofing means reviewing policies through a rural lens, to make these policies fit for purpose for those who live and work in rural areas. In practice, it considers, for policies in the making, the actual and potential, positive or negative, direct and indirect impacts and implications on rural jobs, development prospects, social well-being, equal opportunities for all and the environmental quality of rural areas and communities.