The Rural Pact conference (15-16 June 2022) brought together EU, national, and regional policy makers along with local authorities, social and economic stakeholders in a participatory event that reflected the rural vision’s ambition and bottom-up character. This on-site event engaged participants in designing the governance of the Rural Pact and gathered commitments for the achievement of the long-term vision for the EU’s rural areas. Aris Adlers (AEIDL Board member) and Enrique Nieto (Head of the Policy Unit in AEIDL) and Roxana Vilcu (Policy expert) contributed substantially to the final outcomes of the conference.  

The European Network for Rural Development supported DG AGRI in the organisation of the conference with the implementation of the two parallel sessions. Enrique Nieto coordinated the session on “Revitalising rural areas lagging behind”.  It focused on practical actions needed to boost vitality and viability of rural areas facing population loss, building on the insights and outputs emerging from the ENRD Thematic Group on Rural Revitalisation.

Two presentations introduced the Regional Strategy and Regional Law of measures to address the Demographic and Territorial Challenge of Extremadura (Spain) and a regional mechanism to support cooperation between local rural governments to solve common issues. Finally, Enrique Nieto (ENRD Contact Point) introduced the main results of the ENRD Thematic Group on Rural Revitalisation. He outlined the key enabling factors for rural revitalisation identified by the group and presented the report “Enabling factors for rural revitalisation & a self-assessment tool for policy design”.  

The other session organised by the ENRD focused on  Rural youth as leaders of change. Youth led initiatives and actions supporting generation renewal and positive rural demography were presented and fed into the broader participatory discussion on youth engagement in the Rural Pact.
Aris Adlers was a speaker at the Session “Empowering local communities and engaging stakeholders in building the future of rural areas”. This session was about the action local authorities and stakeholders can take to act in their rural area. Roxana introduced the policy recommendation emerging from our Horizon 2020 project SHERPA.

Roxana Vilcu, Enrique Nieto, Aris Adlers.