In the «Concept of Socio-Economic Development of the Russian Federation for the period until 2020» and «Concept of sustainable development in rural areas of the Russian Federation for the period until 2020» approved by the Government of the Russian Federation at the end of 2008 we can see that «sustainable development of rural areas, improving life of the rural population» referred to the main objectives of the agrarian policy.
However, the implementation of this program activities and territorial development management is impossible without a clear understanding about the subject-matter of the concept of «rural area», which goes under the radar. It should be emphasized that in the current federal legislation of Russian Federation this term is not fixed, there is no clear quantitative distinction between urban and rural areas. In sociology and geography, word «rural» includes a habitable area outside the cities with all natural environment and resources, rural population and a variety of fruits of the previous work of people.
The definition of «rural area» is given in the documents of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It means as follows: the rural area comprises people, territory and resources of public landscape and small towns outside the immediate scope of the economic activity of large urban centers [1]. That is, «rural area» means above all an area of human activity, and less the field of economic activity or administrative boundaries. In fact every part of Russian territory is divided by the boundaries of the Federation and further by the boundaries of municipalities which since 2006 are defined as rural and urban areas under the Federal law «On general principles of organization of local government in Russian Federation». On the basis of this law and the definitions we can give the following interpretation of the concept of «rural area» – a geographically defined area which geographically belongs to the countryside and appears as an unit of administrative division in the form of rural settlement and intra-settlement areas.
In the 90 years researchers of «Rosinformagroteh» proposed a technique for separation of rural areas depending on the distance from population centers (100 km remote or more, medium-remote – from 51 to 100 km, suburban area located in 50 km) and types of natural building (with minimum necessary and optimum natural potential) [2].
In the European Union in use is the systematization in statistics – the Nomenclature Of Units For Territorial Statistics (NUTS), where they use administrative units for an accounting, which are classified according to several levels of subordination. Table shows the criteria used in the different countries of the world to assign a territory to the rural area.
From there as a basis for the classification in all the countries we use the social aspect of the territory development: the number of people, their density, the patterns of population related to the urban center. However, in order to improve the management efficiency of the territory in the Russian context it is appropriate to use different criteria from of typification giving extra «push» for the development of rural municipalities. In particular, it may be indicators of the three major economic systems in rural areas: production, infrastructure and tourism based on the number of residents. The whole criteria selected from each of the complex will make possible to take into account the specifics of a particular area and to distribute them by type of socio-economic development. [3]
These measures are very important in the development of long-term policy documents developed by federal authorities in designated areas, including sections relating to the countryside. The deficiency of clear concepts of rural areas makes it impossible to exercise control in the deficiency of the object. For this reason it is important not only to consolidate the concept in federal law, but also make a list of criteria for classifying communities to the urban or rural. At the moment in Russia criteria which are similar to the OECD standards have not been established. Herewit, if we apply the OECD indicators to Russia, the vast number of administrative areas can be classified as rural.
The allocation of such «grassroots» economic regions in the situation of giving them considerable power to territory management is a priority task for the regional economic policy of Russia in the situation of federal subsidies reducing.
The main criteria for attribution the territories to the rural areas in OECD*
|
Criteria to be applied |
Countries |
|
Constantly building area with a concentration of population less than 1 thous and a population density less than 400 people for 1 km2 |
Canada |
|
Areas with a low population density and scattered population |
Finland |
|
Areas with a population less than 2 thous. people |
Greece |
|
Areas related to agriculture with a low population and structure density |
Italy |
|
Places with a population less than 2,5 thous. people. or other areas which are not included to the number of urbanized one. |
USA |
*Source: Trends In Rural Policy Making And Institutional Frameworks, OECD, 1999.
Since the beginning of reform in 90s directive planning transformed into the state regulation of the economy with the using of special-purpose programme, a the basic management methods of municipal formations of the RF subjects have undergone significant changes in the direction of empowering municipalities on the implementation of various government programs. However, the increasing the total number of these programs is accompanied by a reduction of actual financing from the federal budget in case of scarce nature of the most local budgets (the share in the financing of programs is 15–25 %), which puts at threat the possibility of achieving the plan figures, which are distributed to the following groups:
1) cost figures: to determine the number of resources required for the production of a specific product, service or program;
2) figures of public services: they characterize the direct result of government measures aimed at meeting the needs of individuals and businesses inside the territory;
3) impact figures: they describe the result of the public services assignment for the recipient and determine the degree of achievement of the objective in providing public services.
But in spite of numerous studies regarding to the territorial development planning, there is still no construction algorithm of dedicated programm’s definition that take into account specific features of the countryside. In this regard among the features of the programs of agrarian and economic development can be identified:
– commitment to the final result;
– simultaneously consideration of programs as an instrument of agricultural and economic development and as an integrated subject to control the necessary financial, material, technical, labor and other resources;
– organization of management, monitoring and control of the implementation of programs based on integrated indicators inside of these territories.
From there the development of program measures should be based primarily on the characteristics of the territory defined by the results obtained by the procedure of resources.
As follows from the analysis of the socio-economic situation of rural areas on the basis of the presented algorithm are the following promising directions for dedicated programs of territories development in the target:
– organizational and legal: the development of local government and its financial support, regulation of agrarian relations and forms of ownership, improving the legal framework and institutional structures;
– socio-demographic: providing rural employment, improving health care system and quality of life, the development of public utilities, roads and modern means of communication;
– diversification of production and economic structures: a machine-technological support for production, development of eco-efficient farming systems, the development of modern industrial infrastructure and agriculture;
– creation of the modern basis of information necessary to make grounded decision, for public awareness, reflection and control (monitoring) changes over the socio-economic situation in rural areas.
So, better management of rural areas in Russia, based on the use of program-target method due to the need to determine legally the list of types of areas that can be classified as rural, as well as full use of individual characteristics and resource capacity of the rural areas.
The work was submitted to the International Scientific Conference «Prospects of development of university science», Russia (Sochi), 26-30, September, 2013, came to the editorial office оn 14.08.2013.