News | 26 Oct 2026

Territorial equity and the fight against rural depopulation: an overview of Spain’s strategic policy framework

Spain has formally approved its Second National Strategy for Territorial Equity and the Demographic Challenge. Find out more about the country’s policy framework targeting rural depopulation and territorial imbalances in this article from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge.

Image by Joaquin Ossorio-Castillo from Getty Images

Image by Joaquin Ossorio-Castillo from Getty Images

Rural depopulation and territorial imbalances affect economic competitiveness, environmental sustainability and territorial cohesion. In a country like Spain, where 56% of territory is inhabited by only 8% of the population, this challenge must be addressed at both national and European level.

National policy addressing demographic challenges, territorial equity and the fight against depopulation aims to ensure that opportunities and services are accessible to all citizens, regardless of where they live. It also presents an opportunity for areas under pressure, creating alternatives for the population as a whole and ensuring that the decision to live in a particular place is based on personal preferences.

To achieve this, a cross-cutting approach is essential, to coordinate policies such as housing, mobility, energy, the environment, services, tourism, public administration and culture – to address the challenges facing rural areas.

First strategy on the demographic challenge

In 2019, Spain adopted its first National Strategy to Address the Demographic Challenge and in 2020 established the General Secretariat for the Demographic Challenge. This strategy not only improved quality of life in small municipalities, but also helped to raise public awareness, identify priority areas and launch initiatives including governance instruments, regulatory and planning frameworks, the development of analytical tools and the design of specific programmes.

Progress was made through a comprehensive approach to policies such as connectivity, energy transition and governance. For example, Spain now ranks second in Europe in terms of total fibre optic coverage and fourth for rural areas. Coverage has reached 88.7% of households in rural areas, compared with a European average of 62.6%, according to the EU’s latest State of the Digital Decade report.

However, the scale of socio-economic transformations in recent years – in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine and the evidence of the new climate reality – called for a thorough review of the challenges and priorities facing rural areas. A new strategic framework was needed, capable of integrating scattered policies, strengthening multi-level coordination and improving the effectiveness of actions on the ground through data-driven policy.

A new strategic policy framework 

As a result, seven years on, Spain’s Second National Strategy for Territorial Equity and the Demographic Challenge has been approved. This is an up-to-date, coherent and ambitious response to the profound changes affecting the country’s rural areas. It serves as a roadmap for key stakeholders for the coming years and was agreed on following an extensive process of active consultation involving public authorities, academia and civil society.

The strategy is structured around five pillars:

  • Pillar 1: adaptation and resilience in the face of the climate emergency. This involves recognising the value of the environmental services that rural areas provide, harnessing the potential linked to the green transition, and developing measures to improve their resilience to the climate emergency.
  • Pillar 2: territorial equity in access to infrastructure and services. This includes lines of action to enable the development of infrastructure in rural areas and, more generally, to guarantee citizens’ access to essential day-to-day services, not just public services.
  • Pillar 3: local socio-economic dynamism. This contains lines of action aimed at fostering economic revitalisation and innovation in rural areas, creating new opportunities and making the most of existing ones.
  • Pillar 4: equality and inclusion in rural areas. This addresses the need to ensure that improvements in rural areas leave no one behind, identifying vulnerabilities such as an ageing population and the predominance of men, and developing measures for women, young people, LGBTI people and older people.
  • Pillar 5: culture, identity and community roots. This seeks to guarantee access to cultural rights and change the narrative surrounding rural areas, putting an end to harmful stereotypes.

The strategy also includes two cross-cutting priorities:

  • Science, research and knowledge tools: providing the data, analysis, research and knowledge to support a data-driven public policy approach;
  • Governance, the rural perspective and planning: strengthening multi-level governance, participation, territorial scalability and the technical capacities of local authorities. This is directly linked to the cross-cutting nature of demographic challenge policy, incorporating the rural perspective into all public policies.

This roadmap will be implemented through actions set out in the National Action Plan ‘Towards the 30-Minute Country’, which is currently being drawn up. It will set out the measures to be taken by each ministry and will be complemented by the Observatory for Territorial Equity. The observatory’s role will be to develop data-driven policies that enable more targeted public interventions tailored to the reality of each region.

With the second national strategy, Spain aims to ensure that all citizens, regardless of where they live, have effective access to services, opportunities and rights, and that living in a rural municipality is a viable, dignified and free choice.

Author: General Secretariat for the Demographic Challenge, Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO)