Northwest-Russia focusing rural development!

Creating regional parks and town qualities!

More than 100 participants gathered in Arkhangelsk to discuss the possibilities and challenges for development of rural territorries. The conference was addressed by the Governor Mr. Orlov and politicians from the regional Duma. Minister of regional development Ms. Kadishova also told about the many local community project intiatives that was already funded by the Arkhangelsk regional authorities and called for more applications.

The conference was organized by Arkhangelsk Regional Ministry for Local Self Government and Internal Policy, Nordic Council of Ministers and NGO Futurist. The organizers invited participants from many Russian regions and cities like Murmanks, Karelia, Leningrad and Pskov in addition to a good participation from Arkhangelsk itself. The Futurist team organized a field trip to the countryside and showed several interesting rural intiatives from self government groups, TSG.

Ragnhildur Sigurðardóttir, Daily Manager at Snæfellsnes Regional Park at Iceland shared experiences from strategy development of regional parks by explaining the difference between national parks and regional parks. The difference lies among other things in the top down approach and focus on preservation(national parks) versus bottom up initiatives for rural development(regional parks).There were also many interesting presentations from russian regional parks showing a range of initiatives developed by local community groups.

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Innovation Circle Network´s general secretary Mr. Alf S. Johansen presented the network´s approach towards regional and rural development(see PDF).

Updated: 10. December 2014