Organizational support framework of non-agricultural activities in rural areas: implementation of EU experience

Due to economic development global features in last decades, the share of agriculture in national employment has declined. Responding to this trend, the importance of wider socio-economic development in rural areas is recently stressed out within the implemented EU-oriented policy of rural development in Ukraine, mainly by the support of diversified rural economy.

This study aims at the investigation of general framework and cross-country comparison of European and Ukrainian mechanisms for the development of non-agricultural activities in rural areas. At the EU level, we analyze organizational and financial features of special measures (M19 “LEADER” and M06 “Entrepreneurship development”), developed and implemented by the national Rural Development Programmes under the programming period of 2014-2020 for chosen rural areas in Poland and England. Our study describes specific settings of the analyzed measures, including key ones: small-scale beneficiary orientation; geographic related measure; projects co-financed by European fund (EAFRD), local budget and private sources; local leader involvement for project management etc. In general, the Ukrainian practice of rural small-scale entrepreneurship development is similar to the European corresponding measures.

The study results indicate the higher efficiency of the implemented measure in Ukraine despite the low level of financial support (including both supporting costs: project management and entrepreneurs’ investment). The study suggests recommendations for the improvement of the Ukrainian practice under the limited budget opportunities with concentration on training and assistance activities for the potential development of rural society.