Rural Community Gateway

By Julian Pace

Last month the Swedish Rural Parliament convened in a small town in Lapland. The Swedish Rural Parliament meets every two years and aims to get 1000 people from Sweden and other countries to discuss rural matters and rouse the Swedish rural voice. 

Following the publication of its report ‘Rural Advocacy in Rural Scotland’ the Scottish Consumer Council kindly supported the participation of a small group from Scotland who could then feed their thoughts into the Council as it takes its report forward.

The vast majority of the participants, and indeed the key audience, are the members of the Swedish Village Action Movement which comprises over 4500 village action groups.

Over three days the town of Lycksele, population 8500, was host to 1100 delegates, four Swedish Government Ministers including the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Enterprise & Energy; the Minister for Agriculture; the Minister for Municipal and Finance Market Affairs and the Minister for the Environment and the Swedish Youth Movement.

The event began with the opportunity for people to attend study tours relating to collaboratively using the powers of the public, private and not for profit sectors to get things done and how the daily life of Sami people are affected by national and international decision making. 

One of the study tours was to a village with 380 residents and 400 job opportunities. In talking to those that went to the village the key points they took from their study visit were:

• There was no demarcation between public, private and not for profit bodies. All worked together extremely well.
• A can-do attitude meant they were focused on the outcome and not the barriers.
• They had a mandate from all.

The conference had a series of plenary sessions with a whole range of workshops - key topics included climate change, the environment, equal opportunities, civic service, rural networks, Swedish Rural Development Plan, the Right Livelihood Awards – an alternative Nobel prize and demand for land for food and energy. A number of forthcoming reports were referred to including a Swedish Government Report on future of broadband.

Overall, it was believed that the potential opportunities for rural Sweden were great and included tourism, energy, food. The desire by young people to start new businesses was at an all time high. It was also strongly emphasised that the greater the collaboration between the public, private and not for profit sector the greater the chance of success.

Sometimes the rural networks across Europe see accessing rural funding as a three way conflict between communities, environmental bodies and rural businesses. To grasp the opportunities perhaps requires greater collaboration between all those in rural areas for the benefit of all.    

The Swedish participants also took the opportunity to ask the Ministers some direct questions around issues affecting rural Sweden, such as access to petrol stations, land use, bureaucracy, rural SME access to research and innovation, access to broadband and attitudes of public servants.  

It was a well organised event run and organised by all those involved in everyday rural Sweden, with an agenda driven by the Swedish Rural Community and well supported by Ministers.

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What do you think?

At the Swedish Rural Parliament, it was emphasised that collaboration between the private, public and not-for-profit sectors is key to the success of rural development. Do you think sectors should work together more to bring benefits to rural Scotland? How can this approach me made to work? Can you share examples of good practice from your area? Don't forget you can give us your views on this and any other issue raised in the report by adding your comments.

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