Integrating Rural Women – EU policies and
the evolution rural development
Gusztáv Nemes
Centre for the Rural Economy,
University of Newcastle
Zsuzsanna Fazekas
Faculty of Horticultural
Sciences, St.
István University, Budapest
In.: The New Challenge of Women’s Role in Rural Europe.
Agricultural Research Institute, Nicosia 2002
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Introduction
According to experts and the rhetoric of a number of EU documents (The
future of rural society (Commission 1988), Agenda 2000 (Commission
1997), etc.) the success of an integrated, neo-endogenous approach to
rural development is crucial for the future of Europe’s rural areas.
Such an approach aims to enhance local development and unlock local
resources through empowerment and participation of rural inhabitants,
while tackling structural problems and backwardness through top-down
spatial and sectoral policies. At the same time, rural women have a
crucial role for this approach. They represent not only community
values, family and cultural traditions, but innovation,
entrepreneurship and a large proportion of human resources in general.
Conditions, usually thought to be essential for successful community
based, participatory development (such as mutual understanding, social
networks, co-operation and a common, positive vision on the future) is
hardly conceivable without the full participation of rural women.
Through volunteer work and the participation in various programmes,
women’s networks often prove to be very effective in delivering social
policy or lacking services in rural areas. This has been widely
recognised by policy makers in Europe and these networks are
increasingly used by EU and domestic policies for channelling funds and
delivering central initiatives in rural areas (Commission 1998/a).
Nevertheless, there is strong empirical evidence on the exodus of women
from rural areas all over Europe (Co. Women, especially the young,
educated ones, are leaving backward rural locations to start new life
and carrier in cities, more frequently than man (Commission 2000/a).
This is likely to have serious consequences for the future of these
areas. Without the active participation of women, social networks do
not work and community life is diminishing. Without young women to
establish families, create and raise a new generation becomes
impossible, and young men are also likely to soon disappear from rural
locations. All this can result in a great loss of human resources in
these areas, making local development impossible, painting in dark
colours the future of these areas. European policy makers recognised
these tendencies, and are trying to do something to prevent these
scenarios. There are two basic directions of policy making in this
field. The so called ‘equality policies’ and the support for local
development activities in rural areas. The following will shortly
explore these policy fields, investigating their possible effects on
rural women. Then we will highlight some important issues concerning
the coming eastern enlargement of the European Union, finally make some
conclusions and recommendations concerning the topic.
The ‘equality policies’
Equality, and the full participation of all social groups in local
development activities are extremely important for an integrated or
neo-endogenous approach to rural development. Social networks, local
customs and cultural values (all essential resources for local
development), are often best preserved by otherwise disadvantaged
social groups (such as ethnic groups, the elderly or women) in backward
rural areas. Though, these resources can only be utilized for local
development, if the involved social groups are included and fully
participating in the development process.
In general, EU policy rhetoric strongly supports the equality of women,
and ‘gender’ alongside sustainability or participation, has also become
one of the main buzzwords for rural development policies. Legislative
background for this was established by articles 2 and 3 of the Treaty
of Amsterdam, making „the elimination of inequalities and the promotion
of equality between women and men” a central principle of Community
policy and action (EC 1999). Also in the period of 1994 – 1999 the
principle of equal opportunities for women and men got a stressed role
in actions supported by the Structural Funds, including the production
of appropriate statistics. The General Regulation on the Structural
Funds for the period 2000-2006 contains substantially new features
regarding the principle of equal opportunities for women and men.
Institutional background was established by the appointment of Equality
Commissioners, who became responsible to oversee the systematic
incorporation of this dimension into all community policies and
activities.
The key concept of changes in the regulation is ‘gender mainstreaming’
which is a legal obligation of programmes supported by the Structural
Funds. According to the rhetoric, this approach aims to ensure
sustained and integrated efforts to overcome the persistent
inequalities between women and men that exist in all member states. It
refers to inequalities in relation to rates of inactivity and
unemployment; participation in full-time, part-time and atypical work;
pay and conditions of employment; rates of enterprise creation and
growth; sharing of unpaid domestic and family care work etc. Women
living in remote or marginalized communities may meet this difficulties
concentrated. In order to destroy these disparities the minimum
requirement of the plan or programme is the involvement of
organisations representing equal opportunities issues in the Monitoring
Committees and in the partnerships managing the assistance; and
balanced participation of women and men within the Monitoring
Committees. Project applications will be classified according to their
contribution to equality objectives which means that a potentially
equality-negative operation might be marked for rejection or redesign.
These policies and legislation have two main aims. One is to create an
appropriate legislative institutional and legislative background for
equality issues. The other one is to create a generally supportive
social and policy environment (sometimes even allowing for positive
discrimination) for disadvantaged or excluded social groups, including
women. Nevertheless, these aspirations, by nature, come from a central
political, top-down approach. Concerning this, two questions should be
asked.
One is that: how effective central directives and legislation can be in
achieving equality and avoiding social exclusion? As experts say,
appropriate legislation and policies are necessary, but not sufficient
circumstances to achieve these aims. They are usually implemented
through existing and often quite conservative institutional systems,
which can water down programmes and central indications for social,
political changes. Central policies and aspirations for change can only
bring satisfactory results, if implementing agencies and institutions
incorporate new philosophies and central rhetoric. To change existing
institutions or build new ones to fulfil this task is a much more time
consuming and costly process than making new legislations. Therefore,
to enforce European philosophies and legislation, concerning gender and
equality, is difficult and has not always been successful, even with
the best intentions of all the actors of this process.
The other question is that: in itself how helpful is a generally
supportive social and legislative environment for rural women and the
development of rural areas? This is a very difficult question to
answer, since there are many influencing factors. However, some
international comparison, such as comparing the Republic of Ireland and
Sweden, can give some indication for the answer (Commission 2000/a). In
Sweden issues of gender, equality and all type of social inclusion has
long been on the political agenda. Society is built mostly on
social-liberal and communitarian values. On the other hand, the
well-developed welfare system ensured the provision of social services
(transport, care for children and the elderly, banking, shopping
facilities, etc.) not only in urban, but also in rural areas. In
Ireland, the society is rather built on catholic, conservative values,
which are not particularly supportive for gender related issues. The
importance of this topic for the domestic in political arena only
appeared in recent years. On the other hand, the welfare state is much
less developed and the provision of social services very low or
non-existing in most rural areas. In these two countries, circumstances
and the general social and political environment for gender related
rural development issues are significantly different. However, figures,
showing out-migration of women from backward rural areas are still very
similar. Based on these one could suggest that, a supportive
legislative and policy environment is necessary but not sufficient
factor for avoiding the exodus of rural women and ensuring their full
participation in rural development activities.
Gender and the neo-endogenous approach – support for local development
activities
As we mentioned in the introduction, local development have an
increasing importance within rural development in Europe. One of the
main reasons for this is the still ongoing transformation of the rural
economy. In the past rural areas were considered primarily as places
for primary production, providing food, row material and human labour
for the people and the industry of the rapidly developing cities. This
role was supported by the centre through sectoral (mainly agricultural)
policies. Recently, for a variety of reasons, this situation has
changed significantly. The share of agriculture and other types of
primary production within the rural economy have been greatly reduced,
and other functions gained more importance. Today the rural economy is
becoming increasingly diversified, the provision of public goods (clean
and pleasant environment e.g.), space for recreation and living are
becoming more and more important concerning rural areas. Together with
this, the social and economic picture have become more complex and the
old top-down, sectoral policies are not able to handle rural problems.
All this is resulting in the growing importance of bottom-up, local
development activities. The ‘old top-down system’ was built on central
decision-making, politics, bureaucracy and high level institutions – a
playing field, traditionally built on ‘man values and abilities’, from
which women have often been partially or totally excluded. On the
contrary, the new ‘bottom-up system’ is usually built on social
networks, kinship relations and local knowledge, a playing field in
which women have better abilities and a traditionally more important
role. This means that a growing emphasis on local resources and local
development at the same time means a growing importance and role of
women in the development process and in rural economy and society as a
whole.
Rural tourism could be mentioned as a good example for this, which can
be found all over Europe from the Greek islands to the Irish Republic
and Scandinavia. When farm incomes started decreasing, many family
farms started B&B, catering or small retail businesses to gain some
supplementary income. These businesses were usually run by women. As a
consequence of the ‘90s’ agricultural crisis and the booming of rural
tourism these business often became the primary source of income and
the women became the breadwinners of the family. According to a number
of empirical studies, this often changed their status not only in the
family, but also within the local community (Braithwaite 2001, Bennett
2001). One could state that, rural areas need local development
activities, which can hardly work without the active participation of
women. At the same time, if the local economy and society is reinforced
through activities in which local women have a crucial role, it is
likely to reinforce their social and economic role within family and
local society. At the end of the day, local development helps to
realise and reinforce equality and social justice, serving the interest
of rural society as a whole.
As a result of the last 15 years' evolution of EU rural policies, an
endogenous and integrated development philosophy has emerged, which is
hoped to be appropriate to reach the twofold objectives of cohesion and
diversity. This approach is territorial, rather than sectoral, builds
on local resources and reinforces the ability of local communities to
control their own socio-economic well-being (Ray 2001). This
development philosophy is widely referenced and has become the rhetoric
for EU documents and speeches today. Also, the successive reforms of
structural and cohesion policies, as well as the emergence of new
requirements (such as subsidiarity, partnership, programming) in EU
policy measures made the first steps on the way of realisation of this
philosophy. If all this is understood as an evolutionary trend or a
long-term objective, then the integrated approach can be identified as
the future way of making and implementing development policies in the
EU.
However, the fundamental change in rural policies still has not
occurred, as short term policy goals and implemented measures are quite
different from long term expectations. Repeated attempts at cutting
subsidies have not been successful and the vast majority of the CAP's
budget still supports well off farmers and over-intensified production.
The transformation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) into an
Integrated Rural Policy (IRP) - urged by widely referenced documents,
such as the 'Future of rural society' (1988), the Cork Declaration
(1996) or the Delors' Packages (?) - is still in the unforeseeable
future. A reason for this is that, despite all of transformations and
restructuring, the general view of rurality in Western Europe can still
be characterised with a strong agricultural, top-down, sectoral
orientation. Agricultural interest groups and lobby organisations (such
as national farmers' unions in the Member States, or the COPA) are
still very strong. The present system is backed by long traditions of
the CAP, well-developed institutions and bureaucracy in the EU as well
as at national level (Kola 1999, Nemes 1999, Lowe and Brouwer 2000).
Though the rhetoric of EU policies has changed significantly, one could
say that rural policies are still being made within the framework of
the productivist agricultural paradigm (Hall 1993). Reforms, initiated
from within, have not been able to shift the ruling paradigm, or change
the system fundamentally. To meet such challenges, strong outside
forces are needed.
Eastern enlargement and rural development
Compared to Western Europe, CEE rural areas in general are not simply
backward, they are different. Normally they have a more traditional
society, economy and more natural resources, all advantageous for an
integrated, sustainable approach to rural development. This means
tackling structural problems and backwardness through top-down spatial
and sectoral policies, while unlocking local resources through
empowerment and participation. CEE has long been on a different
development trajectory, therefore the EU system should not be simply
copied, but alternative approaches and development models should be
found. Based on their internal resources and EU assistance, future
Member States could become an experimental field and then a driving
force for the long wanted fundamental reform of EU rural policies.
There are rhetorical signs for such an evolution, but current public
policies do not support this direction sufficiently. With the opening
of the accession negotiations, the Commission rearranged the philosophy
of the Phare Programme to focus on those objectives that have direct
importance in the preparations for membership, mainly in the fields of
institution building and investment . The new pre-accession programmes
were also designed according to these ideas. They do not start from the
reality of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). They do not tackle the
real socio-economic problems of rural areas, they do not aim to
maintain cultural and natural diversity, or to reach a fair degree of
economic and social cohesion in the foreseeable future. Instead, they
serve budgetary constraints and maintain the objectives, structure and
procedures of the present CAP, the Structural and Cohesion Policies in
a top-down, centralized manner, without quality changes of the system.
Beyond the rhetoric, the main aim of the pre-accession strategy is to
improve the accessibility of the official system, markets and territory
of the CEE countries for the policies, goods and capital investment of
the EU. The primary objective is to build a strong, Euro-conform
bureaucracy on a central or governmental level, which will be able to
work with the complicated official system of the EU in the near future.
The secondary objective is to ameliorate physical accessibility, mainly
through building international motorway connections, and, to a smaller
extent, improving airports, railways and trunk roads. The third
objective is connected to environmental threats of international
importance, aiming to reduce water and air pollution and the better
management of municipal waste. Environment is the field of which
Hungary is most lagging behind EU requirements. However, according to
the proposals, this is also the field, where we will have the most
derogations, therefore the environment will not be an obstacle in the
way of EU membership. Concerning rural areas, the main objective is to
prepare CEE for the agricultural restructuring policies of the EU, and
the insertion of CEE agriculture into the EU in a subsidiary and very
unequal position.
Most of these developments are very much needed in CEE. They are useful
and welcomed by the applicant countries. However, they are (at least)
equally useful from the viewpoint of the short/mid-term economic and
political interests of the present EU15 . They try to smooth the
accession process for the present EU, rather than for the applicant
countries. On the other hand, the building of capacities and adequate
institutions for rural development on regional, sub-regional and local
level is almost totally lacking in the pre-accession strategy. There
are insufficient resources for identifying real problems, finding
appropriate rural development models, building local partnerships, or
reinforcing rural communities in any other way. There is no real
intention to preserve cultural and natural diversity, to explore and
use local resources. In other words, the endogenous approach is almost
totally missing from the pre-accession strategy. Moreover, the
requirement of additionality ties the bulk of domestic and local
resources to EU funds and objectives too. In this way, the
pre-accession strategy may even prevent endogenous development
philosophy and practice from spreading in CEE.
One could say that the pre-accession strategy concentrates mainly on
political and economic cohesion. It supports almost exclusively such
objectives which can be justified with short to mid-term political and
economic interests and it is designed in a very much centralized,
top-down manner. Social cohesion, the reinforcement of local economy
and society and, in general, the aims of an endogenous, integrated
approach to rural development are almost totally lacking. According to
the present proposals the main aim is to minimise the shock of the
accession, but for the present EU, rather than for the applicant
countries.
According to today's proposals, there will not be any significant
changes in EU policies because of the eastern enlargement. However,
much of the evolution of EU policy making has been a result of
problems, raised by previous enlargements (the southern enlargement and
the connected reforms in Structural and Cohesion Policies could be the
best example). According to this experience such a significant
enlargement as the Eastern European one is likely to bring about
significant changes in policy making. Considering that, much of the
expected problems are rooted in rural areas, poverty and a need for
sustainable change, the largest challenge should be expected in the
field of rural, cohesion and development policies. This might bring
about significant changes, if not in the pre-accession period, then
during the first years of membership. Concerning the 'compensation
payments', there has been some discussion in the EU about giving the
equivalent amount to the CEE countries, although not for direct
agricultural subsidies, but for sustainable, or integrated rural
development. This money, some Euro 7-8000 million/year, if coupled with
a clear strategy, could make a significant change, turning the theories
of the sustainable development approach into practise.
Conclusions and recommendations
In recent years, there have certainly been an important evolution of
institutions, policies and the general perception of gender and
equality- related issues within the European Union. Nevertheless, these
improvements, especially in the field of rural development, can remain
primarily on a rhetorical level, if the current top-down, exogenous
approach of core EU rural policies does not change significantly.
Values and resources, represented by rural women, can only be
efficiently harnessed in a policy environment, which is genuinely
supportive for local initiatives, community action and an integrated
approach to rural development. The situation of women in rural areas is
more likely to be improved by the utilisation of their resources for
the benefit of the whole rural community, than the force of legislation
or supervisory committees on gender issues. Thus, the future or rural
women (and the rest of the rural society) is strongly connected to the
future of neo-endogenous, integrated rural development within the EU
policy system. Though future prospects, especially concerning Eastern
enlargement and the pre-accession policies do not show much
improvements in this direction, internal and external forces are likely
to bring about significant changes in the not too distant future.
Efforts to achieve the equality of all disadvantaged social groups and
to reinforce the status of rural women could well connect with attempts
to enhance local development and a neo-endogenous approach within the
rural policy system of the EU. At the same time, the coming eastern
enlargement could provide a good framework and an excellent field for
such an evolution.
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