Part 1 of this blog looked at the EU
Structural Funds in Northern Ireland and the origin of the UK Shared Prosperity
Fund. In part 2 Policy officer Aidan
Campbell discusses some of the rural considerations for the development of the UKSPF.
Although the
proposed UKSPF is much wider than the current rural development programme and
aims to replace all the various strands of EU Structural Funds we are primarily
interested in the rural development strand.
The first question is whether a focus on productivity is the place to
start in re-designing a rural development policy or programme for Northern
Ireland. In economic terms:
“Productivity is the key source of
economic growth and competitiveness. A country’s ability to improve its
standard of living depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output
per worker, i.e., producing more goods and services for a given number of hours
of work.”[1]
RCN would
argue that the focus of any future rural development programme should be on
social inclusion and ensuring that communities and citizens who had been left
behind in rural areas are supported to become more connected into social and
economic development.
If we were agreed
that raising productivity is the right objective to pursue to tackle
inequalities we could still get into a heated debate over how to do it. Will raising productivity be best achieved by
investing in infrastructure like roads, telecoms etc. or by investing in rural
childcare, or in better funding for all primary school children? Its probably desirable to invest in all three
but we’re told that times are tight and that “hard choices have to be
made”.
Northern
Ireland has long been behind the curve in terms of productivity and economists
such as Dr. Esmond Birnie have explored the gap
as has Paul MacFlynn of the Nevin Economic Research Institute. A NERI working paper identified some of the
reasons why some sectors of the NI economy lag behind their British counterparts. So the stated objective of the UKSPF of raising
productivity will be a tough nut to crack in NI.
If the
headline objective of the UKSPF is to raise productivity in the region as a
whole that could be achieved by focusing on productivity gains in certain
sectors and geographical areas. For
example, economists have identified particular challenges in raising
productivity in the agricultural sector due to the high proportion of small and
part time farms here compared to Britain.
The current Programme
for Government Framework Working Draft includes an outcome that
states “We prosper through a strong, competitive, regionally balanced economy”
although the only indicator to monitor regional balance is the rate of
employment per council area. Employment
creation won’t necessarily improve productivity if the jobs are of poor quality
or if people who are excluded can’t compete for the jobs being created. In RCN’s view actions and policy to promote
balanced regional development should benefit rural citizens and
communities. Cross border considerations
are also relevant in NI and are even more important in light of Brexit. The rural development programme has played an
important role in developing cross border links and contains a co-operation
strand to facilitate cross border working.
It is important that UKSPF and any rural fund it contains aligns with the
rural development programme in the Republic of Ireland so that cross border
co-operation is facilitated.
Ministerial
statements on the UKSPF have committed to respecting the devolution settlements
and engaging with the devolved administrations to ensure that the fund works
for all places across the UK. This is
made more difficult here in the continued absence of a functioning
Assembly. Despite the problems and the
bureaucracy of EU structural funds it’s important that we don’t throw the baby
out with the bathwater. We should
recognise that LEADER has made some really important investment in rural
communities that would not have happened without it. Earlier versions of LEADER were particularly
important in NI in involving rural stakeholders in designing and developing the
rural development programme and it played an important role in building peace
in NI and developing relationships between local politicians across the
political spectrum before the ceasefires in 1994.
In my view the
UKSPF must ring-fence a fund for rural development as is currently the case
with EU structural funds. Without a
dedicated rural strand it’s unlikely that rural communities, with dispersed
populations will be able to compete for UKSPF investment against urban areas and
a regionally balanced economy becomes another unfulfilled aspiration.
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