A review of the challenges and strategies of delivering services of general interest in European rural areas

Abstract

In many of Europe’s rural regions, sociodemographic changes, the transformation of the labour market, and the advent of digitalisation pose significant challenges in safeguarding services of general interest (SGI). This paper draws on a broad literature review to identify the key challenges and potential adaptation strategies in three SGIs in four European countries. Our analysis explores potentials for redesigning the accessibility of these SGIs, restructuring their human and physical assets, and improving the coordination of their delivery. We argue that in the context of a fading welfare state, there is scope for improving the local coordination of state, private, and civil society actors in delivering SGIs in rural areas.

Sustainability of Local and Rural Development: Challenges of Extremely Deprived Communities

“…The literature review highlighted that no matter the initiatives to be put in place for rural areas revitalization, be it public, private or public-private partnership or be it directed to sustainable use of resources or sustainable general services provision from another perspective -most European countries face the same challenges related to local and rural environment, namely "depopulation, low fertility rates, and aging populations" (Diaz-Sarachaga, 2020), "shrinking populations, ageing, and uncertain economic futures" (Tent, et al, 2021), all of these imposing deficiencies in the provision of services of general interest. Services of general interest are defined as the ones that the public authorities of the Member States should provide as an obligation.…”

“…Among culprits for poor provision of services of general interest in rural areas, there can be listed factors like greater distances, lower populations, which in turn bring lower numbers of users while this negatively impacts the financial viability. (Tent, et al, 2021) Even though rural populations decrease in number, increase in age; also they still remain remote and sometimes isolated. On the other hand, goals for sustainable change focus on dealing with accessibility, proximity, affordability, and quality, so as to secure life quality.…”

“…(Diaz-Sarachaga, 2020) According to literature, for the maintenance of services in rural areas, various solutions have been presented like redesign of accessibility by means of digitalization or transportation, restructure or resize of infrastructure such as the case of health services/health centers, redefinition of coordination for coproduction like the case of shared platforms, open universities. (Tent, et al, 2021) Considering these solutions, other researchers also pointed out that "rural areas risk being left even further behind and marginalized during the next stage of technological innovation, since technologies are framed within an urban and neo-liberal approach to development" (Wang, Luo, Zhang, & Furuya, 2022) One of the negative constraints in this sense seems to be for example digital illiteracy and inadequate infrastructure which refrain them from being connected and access the services they need.…”

Editorial: The geography and governance of infrastructure provision

“…The first three papers by Lacher (2021), Santinha et al (2021) and Stroissnig (2021) deal with issues of technical infrastructure, covering different spatial scales and categories (European, national, urban, rural). The following two papers by Tent et al (2021) and Adam-Hernández & Schneider (2021) cover the specific challenges of infrastructure provision in rural areas, while the last paper by Meier (2021) emphasises the relevance of urban social infrastructure.…”

“…Staying with the challenges of delivering Services of General Interest in rural areas, Tent et al (2021) review the challenges and strategies of delivering SGIs in European rural areas, taking Austria, Germany, Sweden and Scotland as cases. The challenges posed by shrinking/ageing popu-lation and uncertain economic futures call for the redesign of SGIs in the affected regions.…”