In article considers the problems which are connected with improvement of strategic planning system for providing a sustainable development of rural territories.
The executed researches testify about the need of the system accounting of specifics of rural areas and factors of it sustainable development in developing concepts, strategy and programs of social and economic development of regions and municipalities, schemes of territorial planning and a budgetary tax policy.
Authors of the article claim that the developed system of territorial planning in the village is actually subordinated to interests of development of branches where the main attention is paid to agrarian production, instead of complex development of territories as the habitat of the villager which is in harmony with natural and working conditions that in practice leads to underestimation of social and economic and nature protection aspects of rural development.
By research it was established that diversification processes in the village are prerequisites of increase of stability of development of economy on the basis of complex and waste-free use of resources, a covering of losses of villagers during agrarian crises at the expense of the profit got in other branches, and also ensuring alternative employment of the population in nonagricultural kinds of activity.
Authors come to a conclusion about need of creation of multilevel complex system of social and economic development planning of the rural territories, including system of the organizational, economical and financial and legal measures which are defining the activity of federal and territorial authorities, the local governments directed on diversification and increase of efficiency of rural economy, level and quality of life of country people, and also rational use and reproduction of natural and resource capacity of rural territories.
In developed countries, since the 1980-s, territorial strategizing has become widely spread, which is understood as independent and volitional determination by the local community of goals and the main directions of a stable social and economic development in the dynamic competitive environment with the consolidated participation of the key economic entities of the territory. At that, local strategies are the basis for forming state plans and programs of territorial development.
One of the key questions of strategizing is the increase in the level and quality of life of the rural population, constituting about 30% of the Russian population, diversification and development of rural economy and infrastructure with the preservation of a considerable role of agricultural branch, providing 5% of GDP, in which approximately 10% of the population is engaged.
Creating conditions for stable development of rural areas is one of strategic goals of state regional policy, the achievement of which will permit to provide food security, to increase competitiveness of Russian economy and well-being of citizens [1,3].
The year of 2012 was the last in the system of strategizing the development of agricultural territories based on the realization of the first State program for the development of agriculture and the regulation of markets, raw materials and food for the years of 2008-2012. Since 2013, Russia has started realizing the second State program, which is to be fulfilled in 2013-2020, that is during 8 years.
Thus, the system of state management has settled down to a course of predicted development of agricultural economy with planned goals and tasks, the volumes of financial support. It is a positive factor, as 10-12 years ago it was practically impossible to predict even mid-term perspectives for the development of such a complicated segment of economy as agricultural territories.
The realization of the State program is going on in more complicated, crucially new economic conditions.
Firstly, it is connected with the accession of Russia to WTO.
Secondly, the progressive development of Customs Union of Byelorussia, Kazakhstan, Russia and transition to Common economic space, and further to Eurasian economic union.
And, thirdly, the system of strategizing the development of agricultural territories should be considered in the context of global changes in business climate in the world food market, the consequences of crisis processes in a number of leading world economies in the conditions of continued increase of the population in the world and the growth of demands in food resources.
With all positive results of the realization of the first State program on the whole, it is impossible to evaluate it unambiguously. Most of all it is connected with very serious miscalculations of the social development of rural areas.
The social sphere preserves an unjustified lagging of the level of payment of people engaged in agriculture compared to the average level throughout the economy of the country (53%), the social infrastructure of rural territories is developing slowly, in the majority of regions demographic problems have not been solved. According to the data of sociological surveys of All-Russia Scientific Research Institute of Economy and Agriculture, more than 25% of rural population have a disposition to leave their village, among the young people this figure is 50%.
To a large extent it is connected with the fact that in the process of the realization of the program of social development of rural areas there was carried out a so-called “optimization of expenses”, in the result of which during 5 years they received from the federal budget approximately 68,8 billion rubles less than had been planned when the program was approved in 2007.
Speaking about the development of rural areas, one should admit that the accepted practice of discrimination of immediate interests of laborers, expressed in underfunding engineering and social infrastructure of the rural areas, has been transferred to the new State program.
Thus, by the year of 2020, huge “scissors” in the levels of salaries in the economy on the whole and in agriculture will practically be preserved – 100:55.
Construction building capacities in 2014-2020 will be reduced in comparison with 2012 by 47-26%, there will be also reduced the share of families improving their living conditions in the frame of the Program in the total number of families registered as needing housing. In 2011, the share of such families was 3,5%, for 2014 the planned figure is 2,5%, for 2015 – 2,4% with the following increase up to 3,7% in 2020.
The provision of the rural population with medical-obstetrics stations will increase from 9,4 per 10 thousand inhabitants in 2011 up to 10,6 in 2020, but it will not reach the level not only of 1990 (12,0), but also of 2000 (11,3).
The level of gas infrastructure development and water supply of rural houses will increase insignificantly: accordingly from 55,2% and 58% in 2011 up to 60,2 and 61,9% in 2020 [1,2].
It is evident that the support of the rural development on the federal level is insufficient and on a lot of points cannot provide even a return to the level existing 30 years ago. In this situation the role of regions’ contribution to the solution of rural areas development grows greatly.
However, on the federal level there is no regulatory and legal framework to regulate, on a full scale, all aspects of stable development of rural areas. Because of insufficient preparation of this problem, it is necessary to carry out scientific research in the sphere of the development of rural areas in order to strengthen scientific and methodological support for managerial bodies on federal, regional and local levels. In this connection, corresponding changes are necessary in land, forest, water, city building, housing and budget law in the part of the provision and regulation of the stable development.
A program and goal approach in the sphere of territorial management is an important instrument of planning and regulating an economic development, creating conditions for increasing investment attractiveness of regions. This policy is realized through the introduction of innovative technologies not only in the economic activity, but also by creating decent conditions for life and rest in rural areas.
To provide the stable development of rural settlements the regional policy includes a system of strategizing organizational, economic, financial and legal measures, determining the activity of federal and territorial bodies of power, bodies of local self-government, aimed at increasing the efficiency of rural economy, level and quality of life of the rural population, as well as the rational usage and rehabilitation of natural resources potential in rural areas.
Strategizing in the sphere of the stable development of rural areas is realized along the following directions:
- creating favorable social and economic conditions for the local rural population to fulfill socially useful functions, including a produсtion function;
- increasing employment, level and quality of life of the rural population, its competitiveness compared to urban standards of comfortable living conditions;
- improving a demographic situation and increase in expected length of life;
- the rational use of natural resources and preservation of environment;
- the preservation and augmentation of historical and cultural potential of rural settlements.
Realization of a balanced regional social and economic policy on the development of rural areas determines the necessity to observe the following principles:
- the development of rural areas as an integrated territorial complex, fulfilling environmental, social and demographic, cultural, productive and economic, recreational and other functions;
- the provision of constitutional rights of rural citizens for labor, availability of quality education, medical service and other social services;
- the state support for rural territories and settlements to provide the rational use and development of their natural, social and demographic potential;
- partnership relations between regional power and bodies of local self-government, business and rural population for purposes of the stable development of rural settlements;
- considering territorial peculiarities to support depressed rural settlements;
- widening and deepening the integration and cooperation of urban and rural areas, adapting a settlement into an integrated economic system of the region on the basis of the development of road and transport infrastructure, modern means of communication, and creating unified systems of social service of the population;
- using the potential of development of all rural settlements with established centers for inter-settlement service;
- developing local self-government in settlements, all forms of cooperation, increasing the
participation of local population in making decisions, connected with perspective developments of rural settlements.
The main measures of state support for the development of rural areas were realized at the expense of the federal budget along five directions:
• the improvement of living conditions of the citizens living in rural areas, including young families and young specialists;
• gas infrastructure development in rural areas;
• the development of water supply in rural areas;
• the development of a network of general educational institutions in rural areas;
• the development of a network of institutions of primary medical care, physical culture and sports in rural areas.
With the purpose of creating conditions for the integrated development of rural areas and the improvement of the quality of life of the rural population it is desaribale:
• to increase the volume of subsidies allotted to co-funding from the federal budget for: the realization of measures for constructing housing and the development of social and engineering infrastructure of rural territories and for the support of elite seed production and land fertility;
• to increase terms and time limits of investment crediting for the construction, reconstruction and modernization of stock buildings, purchasing of agricultural machines and equipment up to 15-20 years;
• to provide enterprises, realizing projects on the construction of stock breeding complexes, with an installment payment plan (restructuring) of credits obtained before 2008 up to 15 years;
• to work out additional compensating measures directed at the retention of labor resources in the rural areas [3].
To retain the population and preserve the rural way of life it is necessary to strengthen the economy at a fast pace, to build housing, to increase infrastructural possibilities. Therefore, rural districts must receive legal groundwork as growth areas, territories of an intensive and integrated development.
From the position of regional management, municipal programs on the integrated social and economic development of rural areas should be adopted and realized for the stable development of territories. They are directed, first of all, at increasing employment and incomes of the rural population, the development of rural self-government, the encouragement of the development of non-agricultural business in rural areas.
Considering rural areas not only as an object of management, but also as a specific complex which stable development should be directed at economically and ecologically grounded, socially oriented expanded reproduction, we will determine the following main conditions promoting this:
- creating an efficient system of the use of resource potential of rural areas, directed at the improvement of sustainment and social and engineering development of rural areas, also providing expanded reproduction of labor forces and preservation of moral, cultural, intellectual abilities of future generations of the rural population;
- providing a stable development of the economy of rural territories with the purpose of forming a reproduction potential for further economic development and increase of competitiveness of the main kinds of activity in rural areas;
- the preservation and efficient use of nature and resource potential of rural territories with the purpose of its further reproduction and improvement of the ecological situation in rural areas [4].
Insufficient consideration of the ecological factor, while evolving concepts, strategies and programs of social and economic development of rural areas, schemes of territorial planning, can produce a negative influence on the development of rural areas and lead to the reduction of efficiency in using their natural-resource potential. All the more so, that, in recent years, the environment management activity has been financed from the federal budget extremely unsatisfactorily. The volume of financing varies between 0,5 and -0,8% of the expenditure budget, which is approximately 5-10 times lower than in developed countries.
To solve this problem the whole complex of objectives for the ecological development, as well as necessary investments into the environment protection activity are included into the system of strategizing rural areas. It will allow to manage efficiently the use of natural resources of rural areas, thus providing a stable development of rural settlements and the rational use of the natural-resource potential.
One more long-range direction of strategizing the development of rural areas is regional marketing. Its use, together with a developed local self-government and the present system of cooperation and clusters, allows to increase considerably the investment attractiveness and financial independence of rural administrative-territorial entities. A particular role here is given to the development of small and medium-sized entrepreneurship and diversification of the rural economy.
Diversification processes in rural areas are preconditions of increasing the stability of the development of economy on the basis of integrated and non-waste use of natural resources, covering losses of rural people during agricultural crises at the expense of profits obtained in other branches, and also providing the population with alternative employment in non-agricultural kinds of activity.
In fact, the present system of territorial planning in rural areas is subjected to the interests of branch development where the main attention is paid to agricultural production but not to the integrated development of territories as life
environment of rural people, being in harmony with natural and productive conditions, which in practice leads to underestimating social, economic and environmental aspects of the rural development [5].
Thus, the practicality of creating a multi-level system of planning the social and economic development of rural areas in present day conditions acquires particular timeliness and must reflect the following tendencies:
- increasing the role of a social cluster in the development of the territory, where rural people are the main productive force, who can work in any branch of economy, but live permanently on this territory;
- increasing the significance of an integrated economic development of rural areas which have a different potential (natural resources, density and structure of the population, social and historical peculiarities, etc.);
- attaching more attention to problems of natural management and the ecological development of rural areas, the solution to which is only possible with using territorial inter-branch and inter-industry approach [6].
In accordance with the Federal Law № 131, the bodies of local self-government have the right to set long-term and medium-term goals of local development and determine the means of their achievement. Strategic plans for the social and economic development of municipal entities become long-term guideposts in this direction.