The main forces affecting rural regions in 2020

Rural regions in OECD countries have always faced development challenges resulting from: dependence on natural resources, scarce labour resources, long distances from markets, and the effects of globalisation. Today, their development opportunities are further constrained by: the demands of climate change, increased economic instability and ‘vulnerability’ – resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the lingering effects of the 2008 recession, and the uneven impact of the internet economy. However, from a rural development policy perspective, perhaps the most important new challenge may be the rise of rural populism. Rural residents have long been perceived differently from urban residents, and over the past two decades this gap has increased. Importantly, while the internet and information and communication technologies (ICTs) were initially seen as tools that could improve social cohesion and integrate different areas and urban and rural populations, they now seem to have instead increased tensions between them. Since the basic values ​​of urban and rural people have developed separately, they are very different and it is difficult to achieve the political compromise required to create effective policies for national governments. As a result, the chances of national governments being able to create and implement coherent rural development policies are diminished.