scholarly journals The Social Economy as a Factor of Economic Development and Resilience of Population in Rural Areas. A Study of Mediating Effects in Castilla-La Mancha (Spain)

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5544
Author(s):  
Marcos Carchano ◽  
Inmaculada Carrasco ◽  
Sebastián Castillo ◽  
M. Carmen García-Cortijo

Depopulation is a serious problem facing developed countries, among them Spain. It is especially severe in rural areas, where some vicious circles emerge, nourished by reduced infrastructures and services, deteriorated quality of life, the low inflow of new inhabitants, low local development and an aged population. In this context, social economy institutions may be a key factor in the fight against population decline, having a leading role in reactivating economic dynamism through the creation of stable, high-quality jobs, promoting the local endogenous development of rural areas, helping enhance income in those spaces, encouraging the arrival of people and impacting positively on social cohesion, and enabling sustainable growth. This paper focuses on Castilla-La Mancha, an eminently rural region, which is among the areas most severely impacted by the loss of population in Spain. The aim is to analyze the factors that affect the settlement of population, and to demonstrate that social economy institutions may be a resilience factor of rural population. A partial least squares model, composed of 8 constructs related to 21 variables extracted from data for 2017 and 2018 on the 613 municipalities, allows us to demonstrate that the existence of social economy entities helps to anchor population and increase the resilience of this territory.

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Cebrián Abellán ◽  
Carmen García Martínez

The modernization of economic activities in mountain areas is conditioned by the physical characteristics of the territory, the weight of activities related to the primary sector, infrastructure deficits, low population density, as well as the declining and ageing population. The response to this situation has involved implementing a certain degree of functional diversification. One of the aspects that has assisted in the expansion of the tertiary sector is leisure and recreational activities. Rural tourism in European mid-mountain regions has emerged as a key element, supported by local development strategies and changing preferences in demand. In the tourism industry, the resources are the raw material, in which landscape plays a leading role. The aim of this prospective study is to evaluate the landscape as a heritage and a tourism resource, focusing on its capacity to reactivate depressed rural areas of inland Spain (mid-mountain areas in the southeast of the autonomous region of Castilla-La Mancha). The study is based on opinions provided by tourists and uses a directed survey as an analytical tool. The results highlight the key role of landscape, especially natural landscape, in the use of such areas for tourism. This, in turn, underlines the need for a greater focus on organizing how the landscape is utilized.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 189
Author(s):  
Juan José Juste Carrión ◽  
Jesús María Gómez García ◽  
Josefa Eugenia Fernández Arufe

Local/rural development processes require the presence in the territory of many different factors (economic, social, cultural, etc.) as well as a considerable economic and social cohesion in which should be engaged the forces of the territory, among which are the enterprises of the Social Economy. The aim of this paper is to analyze the relevance of the business sector of the Social Economy in the process of local development in Castilla y León, with special reference to rural areas. Accordingly, based on the identification of the fundamental aspects that characterize the development as part of economic restructuring (origin, production factors and spaces typical), the paper describes its links with the Social Economy sector. Later, it analyzes, from an applied perspective, the contribution of the Social Economy enterprises to local/rural endogenous development of Castilla y León in terms of employment and production. The data to conduct this analysis is based, in addition to those obtained from the official statistical sources, on the results of a own survey conducted to the Social Economy enterprises in Castilla y León.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luisa Sturiale ◽  
Alessandro Scuderi ◽  
Giuseppe Timpanaro ◽  
Benedetto Matarazzo

Rural areas are recognized as multifunctional spaces, where traditional agro-silvo-pastoral and other human activities (unrelated rural tourism, ecotourism, processing industries of agricultural and or extractive products, land maintenance, trade in local products, etc.) take place alongside each other. The integrated endogenous development model, established to mitigate the effects of human activity in protected areas, relies on the enhancement of specific resources of individual territories through the active participation of the community to promote local development. This model is intrinsically connected with the model of sustainable development, based on three cornerstones: environmental, social, and economic sustainability. The difficulty in achieving a reasonable balance among these values relates primarily to areas subject to protection (i.e., Parks and Natural Reserves). Ultimately, the environmental culture emphasizes the sustainability of natural resources, obviously in relation to these values and to the vulnerability of these areas. This paper outlines some relationships between environmental protection and the exercise of agricultural activities and other human activities in protected areas by using the theory of “rough sets”. The study aims to show that in the complex context of Etna Park (recognized World Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2013), the model developed by the “rough sets” could provide useful guidance to policy makers to formulate local development strategies according to a model of the sustainable management of protected areas.


Author(s):  
Mieczysław Adamowicz

The objective of the study, on the basis of problem literature, is the presentation of theoretical concepts referring to rural development and practical support programmes of these areas available in Poland and the European Union (EU). In this context, rural areas are presented as the reference area for development policies, with particular consideration for the Cohesion Policy (CP), the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), including the EU Rural Area Development Programme (RADP). Among the theoretical rural development concepts, particular attention was devoted to sustainable and balanced development forming the basis for shaping practical development programmes and identifying new theoretical approaches. The latter encompassed the smart rural areas concept, the resilience concept, local development programming, bottom-up endogenous development and the neo-endogenous concept of open development. It was concluded that the LEADER and LEADER+ neo-endogenous concept is an effective form of supporting rural area development, especially after the fifth extension of the EU with Central and Eastern European countries.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 148
Author(s):  
Dante Ayaviri Nina ◽  
Gabith Quispe Fernandez ◽  
Patricio Sánchez Cuesta

Practices and modes of development planning have focused on researchers, because the development of communities and states depends on them, and it has its importance in all territories, as well as the practices and processes of construction of development. The article aims to identify the practices that rural communities have in relation to local development, specifically addresses the |Aymara communities of Bolivia. To do this, a survey of leaders of the region was carried out; on the other hand, development plans and specialized literature in the field of development have been reviewed. The results establish that local development approaches the theory of endogenous development, given the practices and the role played by actors in the development processes, which involved solid and inclusive participative community organizations, a leading role in the consolidation of productive, organizational and planning systems, based on values, ancestral and cultural customs of territory with a focus on sustainability.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 287
Author(s):  
Florina Bran ◽  
Ghenadie Ciobanu ◽  
Maria Loredana Popescu ◽  
Petrut Cristian Vasilache

The economic, social transformations of the last three decades of evolution of rural development both in Romania and in general in rural areas in the context of globalization have radically changed the vision, thinking and attitude of the rural population. As a result, it has led to a massive migration of population to other developed countries. This phenomenon is also characteristic for Romania. At the same time, the technological development has a massive impact on the process of organizing the society and the evolution of the society, both the evolution of biotechnologies, nanotechnologies, branches in the field of chemistry, biochemistry and digitization, which have impact on the development or underdevelopment of the areas in poverty and underdevelopment. economic, but at the same time they will be able to make an essential contribution to the local rural development and to the creation of new job opportunities for both young people and specialists from different branches, as well as for vulnerable groups of population from the rural area. In this article we aim to address these issues and come up with certain solutions and proposals. Keywords: Sustainable local development, rural areas, technological development, digitization


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 86-92
Author(s):  
T. I. Minina ◽  
V. V. Skalkin

Russia’s entry into the top five economies of the world depends, among other things, on the development of the financial sector, being a necessary condition for the economic growth of a developed macroeconomic and macro-financial system. The financial sector represents a system of relationships for the effective collection and distribution of economic resources, their deployment according to public demand, reducing the risk of overproduction and overheating of the economy.Therefore, the subject of the research is the financial sector of the Russian economy.The purpose of the research was to formulate an approach to alleviating the risks of increasing financial costs in the real sector of the economy by reducing the impact of endogenous risks expressed as financial asset “bubbles” using the experience of developed countries in the monetary policy.The paper analyzes a macroeconomic model applied to the financial sector. It is established that the economic growth is determined by the growth and, more important, the qualitative development of the financial sector, which leads to two phenomena: overproduction in the real sector and an increase in asset prices in the financial sector, with a debt load in both the real and financial sectors. This results in decreasing the interest rate of the mega-regulator to near-zero values. In this case, since the mechanisms of the conventional monetary policy do not work, the unconventional monetary policy is used when the mega-regulator buys out derivative financial instruments from systemically important institutions. As a conclusion, given deflationally low rates, it is proposed that the megaregulator should issue its own derivative financial instruments and place them in the financial market.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 132
Author(s):  
Wei Li ◽  
Zhanwei Zhang ◽  
Yang Zhou

Previous planning for rural revival in towns has emphasized construction and government-led policies. However, we argue that the dilemmas of peri-metropolitan rural areas, such as Desakota in China, are far more complex faced with rural super village and hollowed village transformations. Rural revival planning needs to coordinate with the development of urbanized and rural areas towards multifunctional goals and plans as a whole. Therefore, we selected the town master plan of Lijia, a typical peri-metropolitan village in China, as a case study. Through a historical–interpretative approach involving analysis of planning policies, questionnaires, and in-depth interviews with the key stakeholders involved, we structured the process and mechanism of rural revival in Lijia into three phases: resource identification, capitalization, and financialization. In different phases, different stakeholders adopt different roles. The government takes a leading role in resource identification and capitalization, while firms take a leading role in the process of financialization. “Market-dominant and government-guided” planning stimulates villagers to participate in rural revival. We highlight the importance of multifunctional land-use in terms of rural revival in the master planning of peri-metropolitan villages and provide a practical reference for uniting multiple stakeholders, including governments, firms, and villagers.


Author(s):  
Charles Fonchingong Che ◽  
Marcellus Mbah

Amidst shrinking budgets for community development in most of sub-Saharan Africa, the social solidarity economy is touted as a model in local development. This article situates solidarity initiatives and capability-focused outcomes that deliver enhanced livelihoods, social security and community development. The conceptual framing of social theory, social capital and social economy informs this case study with focus on the Ndong Awing Cultural and Development Association, North-West region, Cameroon. The analysis of semi-structured interviews and secondary sources suggests that solidarity networks such as njangis, cooperatives, quarter development unions and diaspora networks promote village-centric development. These overlapping networks generate scarce financial and human resources–essential packages for livelihoods and welfare. Emerging state policy is yet to calibrate these mechanisms of ground-up, mutual development drives. Galvanising these solidarity assets require meaningful co-productionand revamped state−community relations. This article offers a paradigm shift in how village groups mobilise income, capital and financing of village projects, nurtured through human development and agency.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5766
Author(s):  
Guanglu Zeng ◽  
Chenggang Zhang ◽  
Sanxi Li ◽  
Hailin Sun

China was the first developing country to achieve the poverty eradication target of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 10 years ahead of schedule. Its past approach has been, mainly, to allocate more fiscal spending to rural areas, while strengthening accountability for poverty alleviation. However, some literature suggests that poor rural areas still lack the endogenous dynamics for sustainable growth. Using a vector autoregression (VAR) model, based on data from 1990 to 2019, we find that fiscal spending plays a much more significant role in reducing the poverty ratio than agricultural development. When poverty alleviation is treated as an administrative task, each poor village must complete the spending of top-down poverty alleviation funds within a time frame that is usually shorter than that required for successful specialty agriculture. As a result, the greater the pressure of poverty eradication and the more funds allocated, the more poverty alleviation projects become an anchor for accountability, and the more local governments’ consideration of industry cycles and input–output analysis give way to formalism, homogeneity, and even complicity. We suggest using the leverage of fiscal funds to direct more resources to productive uses, thus guiding future rural revitalization in a more sustainable direction.


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