scholarly journals Implementing SDGs to a Sustainable Rural Village Development from Community Empowerment: Linking Energy, Education, Innovation, and Research

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 12946
Author(s):  
Isabel del Arco ◽  
Anabel Ramos-Pla ◽  
Gabriel Zsembinszki ◽  
Alvaro de Gracia ◽  
Luisa F. Cabeza

Rural depopulation is a worldwide fact and has a domino effect on medium and small cities, which act as a nucleus of reference for small towns. Moreover, the United Nations (UN) stressed that disparities between rural and urban areas are pronounced and still growing over time. Globally, people in rural areas lack access to modern energy services, which affects productivity, educational and health services, exacerbating poverty, among other things. Given this reality, the following research questions arise: how can we act to reverse this reality? Are there examples of transformation in rural contexts where community empowerment is a key strategy? This paper aims at describing the transformation process of a small rural municipality towards a sustainable development, in parallel to the activation of the local productivity that helps to eliminate the effects of rural depopulation. Therefore, the project ALMIA was established as an example of a sustainable village that is Almatret (Catalonia-Spain). The backbone of such project is the commitment to community empowerment, where the main results are the generation of networks with experts and researchers to help the municipality’s energy transition, the involvement of the local administration, the commitment to technological development, as well as the socio-community development. Moreover, the activities developed within the project ALMIA are aligned with the UNs Sustainable Development Goals, alignment that is analyzed in detail. Thus, this paper aims to further highlight existing sustainable development practices related to community empowerment in order to promote similar practices.

2021 ◽  
pp. 089719002110002
Author(s):  
David Rhys Axon ◽  
Melissa Johnson ◽  
Brittany Abeln ◽  
Stephanie Forbes ◽  
Elizabeth J. Anderson ◽  
...  

Background: Patients living in rural communities often experience pronounced health disparities, have a higher prevalence of diabetes and hypertension, and poorer access to care compared to urban areas. To address these unmet healthcare service needs, an established, academic-based MTM provider created a novel, collaborative program to provide comprehensive, telephonic services to patients living in rural Arizona counties. Objective: This study assessed the program effectiveness and described differences in health process and outcome measures (e.g., clinical outcomes, gaps in care for prescribed medications, medication-related problems) between individuals residing in different rural-urban commuting area (RUCA) groups (urban, micropolitan, and small town) in rural Arizona counties. Methods: Subjects eligible for inclusion were 18 years or older with diabetes and/or hypertension, living in rural Arizona counties. Data were collected on: demographic characteristics, medical conditions, clinical values, gaps in care, medication-related problems (MRPs), and health promotion guidance. Subjects were analyzed using 3 intra-county RUCA levels (i.e., urban, micropolitan, and small town). Results: A total of 384 patients were included from: urban (36.7%), micropolitan (19.3%) and small town (44.0%) areas. Positive trends were observed for clinical values, gaps in care, and MRPs between initial and follow-up consultations. Urban dwellers had significantly lower average SBP values at follow-up than those from small towns (p < 0.05). A total of 192 MRPs were identified; 75.0% were resolved immediately or referred to providers and 16.7% were accepted by prescribers. Conclusion: This academic-community partnership highlights the benefits of innovative collaborative programs, such as this, for individuals living in underserved, rural areas.


2021 ◽  
Vol 301 ◽  
pp. 03002
Author(s):  
Peter Čajka ◽  
Veronica Grebennikova ◽  
Hoang Manh Trung Vu ◽  
Van Tran Ngo

Our article tackles the timely and important issue of the university collaboration aimed at shaping up the sustainable urban areas and contributing to their development through the teaching and research. Universities provided qualified labour force, yield novel research solutions and act as hubs for entrepreneurial activity in urban areas. In this article, we show that even though most of the universities are concentrated in large urban centres and capital regions, many of them are located in small rural areas and have a profound effect on them. We also demonstrate the impact of universities on the sustainable development which is done through the sustainable education as well as the R&D approaches. These effects are very relevant for the co-designing of sustainable rural areas that can follow the principles of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and the green policies imposed by the majority of the local and central governments around the world.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Pace ◽  

This paper is about how framing an innovative approach for community empowerment by organising networks and consortia for preparing proposals in different research programme frameworks. In the beginning, there was as study for classifying underground spaces and using them as a solution for a sustainable over ground urban development. By advancing in the proposals preparation, the team developed a completely different vision. The underground space was more and more seen as a place for building local identity and sense of belonging, progressing from a functional to a cultural value, from a site conservation to a community valorisation approach, by giving centrality to the people and their needs. As first step, the project faced the challenge of regenerating urban areas by realising Underground Built Heritage potential for local communities and experimenting a methodological approach on sustainability transition. Just like a story, the paper describes the evolution of the approaches, and the implementation of the activities, also if unsuccessful in the competition. The consortium grew and matured, a network based on strong analysis and revision, whose members developed an impressive social capital and learned by any failure. Piece by piece, this network was able to achieve the success, and to start a COST Action, the CA 18110 “Underground Built Heritage as catalyser for Community Valorisation”. The Action, funded for establishing and implementing an expert network, promotes balanced and sustainable approaches to preserve the Underground Built Heritage (UBH) and, at the same time, to realise the potential of the underground space in urban and rural areas for regeneration policies. The paper finally explains how a wellmotivated group of people can transform a network activity, with a little budget, in a research and on field project and how such a network can provide innovative tools for engaging and empowering local communities.


2018 ◽  
Vol 68 (673) ◽  
pp. e566-e575 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Murchie ◽  
Rosalind Adam ◽  
Wei L Khor ◽  
Edwin A Raja ◽  
Lisa Iversen ◽  
...  

BackgroundThose living in rural areas have poorer cancer outcomes, but current evidence on how rurality impacts melanoma care and survival is contradictory.AimTo investigate the impact of rurality on setting of melanoma excision and mortality in a whole-nation cohort.Design and settingAnalysis of linked routine healthcare data comprising every individual in Scotland diagnosed with melanoma, January 2005–December 2013, in primary and secondary care.MethodMultivariate binary logistic regression was used to explore the relationship between rurality and setting of melanoma excision; Cox proportional hazards regression between rurality and mortality was used, with adjustments for key confounders.ResultsIn total 9519 patients were included (54.3% [n = 5167] female, mean age 60.2 years [SD 17.5]). Of melanomas where setting of excision was known, 90.3% (n = 8598) were in secondary care and 8.1% (n = 771) in primary care. Odds of primary care excision increased with increasing rurality/remoteness. Compared with those in urban areas, those in the most remote rural locations had almost twice the odds of melanoma excision in primary care (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.92; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.33 to 2.77). No significant association was found between urban or rural residency and all-cause mortality. Melanoma-specific mortality was significantly lower in individuals residing in accessible small towns than in large urban areas (adjusted hazards ratio [HR] 0.53; 95% CI = 0.33 to 0.87) with no trend towards poorer survival with increasing rurality.ConclusionPatients in Scottish rural locations were more likely to have a melanoma excised in primary care. However, those in rural areas did not have significantly increased mortality from melanoma. Together these findings suggest that current UK melanoma management guidelines could be revised to be more realistic by recognising the role of primary care in the prompt diagnosis and treatment of those in rural locations.


GIS Business ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 310-323
Author(s):  
Dr. Mahendra Parihar

Population of our country is growing at alarming rate. Population of urban areas are growing faster than rural areas given the emerging of economic activities in cities. With the migration of rural population to urban areas for various reasons resulting into increase in lots of issues and problems in urban areas. Although, our governments at Centre level and State levels are putting lots of efforts and trying their best to resolve many of the issues of growing urban areas but somehow it seems that their efforts are falling short to solve those problems. On other hand, with continuous increase in population of urban areas, some of those problems are becoming worsen and leading to emergence of another problems. It is said that if something will not be done on urgent basis to save those urban areas and cities, it will be too late to achieve national goals especially relating to sustainable development. Therefore, to make our cities and urban areas to sustain for long run especially for future generations, it is need of hour to look at those specific issues such as transport, infrastructure, pollution, housing, sanitation, congestion, illiteracy, migration, etc. very carefully and try to resolve as early as possible. But among those mentioned issues, transportation problem (which include congestion, pollution, traffic mix, fuel consumption, high travel time, low productivity, slow traffic movement, etc.) is one of the major problem of cities in today’s context and putting financial burden on national economy in many ways.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Narimah Samat ◽  
Mohd Amirul Mahamud ◽  
Mohammad Javad Maghsoodi Tilaki ◽  
Mohd Azmeer Abu Bakar ◽  
Leong Tan Mou ◽  
...  

Urban encroachment into the peri-urban areas has blurred the borders between urban and rural areas. Thus, the urban growth boundary (UGB) has been used to encourage the sustainable development of cities and improve long-term planning efficiency. Studying the understanding of the UGB concept in ensuring sustainable development in Malaysia would be beneficial. This study aimed to investigate the perception and understanding of the UGB concept and function to achieve sustainable urban development. An online survey was conducted involving 82 experts, which comprised planners from PLANMalaysia and academicians in the field of urban planning. Results indicated that the perception of the UGB score was significantly greater by 1.16 than the normal score of 3, which indicated that the experts agreed that UGB could improve the urban development. The findings also indicated that the existing planning policy and inclusion of UGB had protected agricultural and natural land; however, stricter and tighter borderless development should be conducted.


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 235-239
Author(s):  
Borislav Borissov ◽  
Anita Cucoviċ ◽  
Halit Shabani

By promoting the principles of sustainable development, educating the population and employees in all sectors about the opportunities for practical implementation, it encourages people to gather and work together to design and implement sustainable development in their communities. Great importance should be given to, and as such, commented on, new orientations at the level of public policies at the global, European and national levels. Also, great attention should be paid to changes in society.Global Sustainable Development Goals should be universal and, as such, applicable in all countries and communities, across the population. Their implementation should take into account specific opportunities, conditions and opportunities in different parts of the planet. Priority areas of action need to be identified and opportunities for contributing to sustainable development considered. In this way, we become part of a global partnership that is key to achieving the goals.In order for planning and implementation to be successful, significant mobilization of resources from different sources must be ensured. It is also possible to create clear public policies at national, regional and international levels through increased development cooperation, which is mainly based on development strategies that promote the fight against poverty and gender inequality. In this way, the promotion of gender equality creates the basis for prosperous and sustainable development.Another possible policy is to raise the level of economic productivity while pursuing diversification; technological development and innovation, all through the focus of work intensity. The condition for the development of these policies or strategies is achievable with the economic, social and environmental links with urban and rural areas.


1986 ◽  
Vol 18 (10) ◽  
pp. 1297-1322 ◽  
Author(s):  
P Congdon ◽  
J Shepherd

Research on urbanisation has been hampered by discrepancies between the administrative boundaries of towns and a meaningful spatial framework of urbanism that recognises both the true extent of the built-up areas of towns and the functional linkages between urban centres and their surrounding hinterland. An ‘urban area’ definition has been recently developed for British census statistics to represent the physical reality of urban boundaries in terms of land that is urban in use, whereas the functional approach to urban definition has been implemented in terms of a set of urban-centred labour-market areas. In this paper the spatial frameworks of physical and functional definitions are combined in order to investigate processes of population growth in small- and medium-sized towns in England between 1971 and 1981. As in other studies, a general tendency to counterurbanisation— higher growth rates for smaller urban areas (physically defined)—is demonstrated. However, a variety of types of ‘counterurbanisation’ also become apparent. In addition to growth of smaller towns in rural areas beyond metropolitan influence, there has been growth of towns in the labour-market areas of newer freestanding urban centres, and also in the decentralised commuter hinterlands of large metropolitan cores. In this paper a number of causal processes which may underlie different types of growth are investigated, setting this investigation within the standard and labour-market regional context of physical urban areas. There is evidence of ‘people-led’ growth in environmentally attractive locations (for example, through retirement migration). However, growth of small- and medium-sized towns also reflects employment decentralisation and deconcentration to freestanding or satellite towns, and the extension of commuter hinterlands linked both to a growth of car commuting and to availability of land for private-sector housing. Government policies encouraging growth are also demonstrated to be significant. Conversely, decline in a minority of small towns often indicates a diminishing employment base or policy restrictions on growth. The impact on modelling growth in urban areas of a diversity of causal processes and locational contexts for growth is considered.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 1852
Author(s):  
Kinga Hat ◽  
Gernot Stoeglehner

Digitalisation, referred to as the fourth industrial revolution, is gradually becoming part of all areas of life. The progressing digitalisation inspires new business models, restructures production processes and provides new revenue and value-producing opportunities. Simultaneously jobs are becoming abdicable and livelihoods can get threatened. To analyse the spatial context of the susceptibility of regional labour markets to 4.0 technology in Austria, the occupation-based assessment of digitalisation probability was projected on the industry standard classification and linked to the statistical employee data at the municipal level. The outcomes reveal to what extent the economic sections and divisions are exposed to digitalisation. Results representing spatial distribution reveal that digitalisation risks cannot be explicitly assigned to certain spatial structures or localities. Still, it can be stated that urban areas and small towns are relatively less exposed to disappearing of existing jobs. Municipalities with the highest vulnerability to labour replaceability are located mainly in rural areas. The discussion focuses on regional resilience, social vulnerability and possible development paths for different frameworks and spatial context of consequences. The study emphasizes the importance of digitalisation processes for regional development and presents an approach of analysing their territorial dimensions.


Author(s):  
Agnieszka Jaszczak ◽  
Katarina Kristianova ◽  
Gintarė Vaznonienė ◽  
Jan Zukovskis

The problem examined in this research is how the loss of rural settlements, small towns, villages and farms contributes to changes in rural landscape and how can this change be managed? The survey was conducted in matching locations in Poland, Slovakia, Germany and in the southern part of Cyprus. The research methods were based on the analysis of source materials and on field analyses in the studied regions. Source research included searching for information in a literature on the subject, as well as planning documents, strategies and studies of spatial development conditions. The main causes of the decline of abandoned rural areas are the decrease in population and migration to cities, the intensification of production and the increase in production areas and the change in the nature of the activities of rural homesteads. The results of the research also show that in addition to common trends comprising the transformation of landscapes in rural areas, each of the analyzed regions differs in terms of the degree of adverse changes, the period in which changes were noted and the possibilities to prevent these changes. In order to prepare a village rehabilitation strategy, a comprehensive diagnosis of whole changes is required, in which the state and causes of landscape changes are determined, and possible solutions for halting rural depopulation are foreseen.


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