• Organised by Rural Pact
  • CEST
  • English
  • European Union
  • Online

This Policy Action Lab, organised by the Rural Pact Support Office, will explore measures that can be taken to efficiently implement the rural proofing mechanism at EU, national and regional levels. It will enable peer exchange and reflection as well as develop proposals and recommendations for policymakers.

Objectives

  • Improve understanding of the rationale, methods and challenges of applying rural proofing across policies at national and regional levels;

  • Enable peer exchange and reflection on improving rural proofing mechanisms, including effective collection and use of statistics and data;

  • Develop proposals and recommendations for policymakers and identifying support and capacity building needed to put them in place.

The event is mainly targeted at policymakers at national and regional levels in charge of designing, implementing and monitoring policies having an impact on rural areas, as well as rural stakeholders involved in advocacy and representing rural communities.

It will take place online and will be held in English with no interpretation.

The Policy Lab will take into account the open questions asked in the European Commission’s report on ‘The long-term vision for the EU’s rural areas: key achievements and ways forward’ published in March 2024.

Indirectly, the event will also explore how to address data limitations, linked to the insufficient availability of policy-relevant rural statistics and data, which are challenging for Member States to collect at the right level.

English language

Draft Agenda

(PDF – 129.82 KB)

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Background

When public policies – for example on education, health, digitalisation etc. – are designed without taking into account the specific needs of rural areas, they can increase inequalities. How can this be avoided? 

Rural proofing  – reviewing policies through the rural lens to assess their impact (positive or negative) on rural jobs, quality of life, or equal opportunities for rural inhabitants – is a key cross-cutting action of the EU Rural Action Plan. The European Commission has put in place a number of tools that can support rural proofing – these are available in the ‘Better regulation toolbox’ (notably, Territorial Impact Assessments). 

The European institutions (the Council, European Parliament, European Committee of the Regions and European Economic and Social Committee) responding to the Commission’s Communication on the rural vision have all welcomed the strengthening of rural proofing mechanisms.

As regards rural proofing at national and regional levels, work has been done to study legal frameworks and practices from different countries and to develop recommendations on how this process could be taken forward. For more information, see the results of the ENRD Thematic Group on Rural Proofing and the ‘Rural proofing: A foresight framework for resilient rural communities’ study commissioned by the Committee of the Regions.

Major work on rural proofing, especially in the context of health, was carried out by the OECD and the WHO: ‘Rural Proofing: Lessons from OECD countries and potential application to health’. Rural proofing insights are also being developed by multidisciplinary research projects such as GRANULAR and RUSTIK. 

Some EU Member States already have experience with rural proofing, others are only starting to move in this direction, which calls for exchange on viable solutions and practices. In response, the Polish Presidency of the European Council has chosen rural proofing as one of its key themes. 

Rural stakeholders call for reinforced rural proofing of various policies in the Declaration on the future of rural areas and rural development policy in the European Union, adopted by the Rural Pact Coordination Group in December 2024. The European Commission in its communication on ‘A Vision for Agriculture and Food: Shaping together an attractive farming and agri-food sector for future generations’ says that the “rural proofing principle, including territorial impact assessments, will be further operationalised and sufficiently resourced at EU level”.