Green Rural Deal
Enabling residents of rural Greece, Kosovo, and Serbia to co-create projects, tools, and instruments that support the sustainable development of their home regions.
Project info
Germany, Greece, Kosovo, Serbia
10/20 - 12/22
Local governments, Civil society, Private sector
574,738.00 €
Contact info
Katja Witte
- Balkan Green Foundation (BGF)
- Germanwatch e.V.
- Regional association of local government of Western Macedonia
- RES Foundation
Background
Municipalities in Europe’s rural regions face different challenges than urban regions with regards to the sustainability transformation: The shrinking and ageing of their population, a shortage of skilled workers and, simultaneously, a high level of unemployment. In these situations, the trade-off between creating jobs and saving the climate seems all too real. Green Rural Deal supports rural municipalities in building up their transformative capacities and developing suitable solutions for a zero-carbon economy.
Project
A sustainability strategy requires reliable data. Therefore, the project supports local stakeholders in Western Macedonia (Greece), Kamenica (Kosovo) and Priboj (Serbia) in gathering and assessing key socioeconomic data relevant for a transition to a zero-carbon economy. As a next step, the same regional stakeholders co-create project ideas and concepts in a series of events and formats, including one study trip to a rural region in Germany. Furthermore, the partners develop tools which help to align regional economic development strategies with climate targets. Based on learnings from the three target regions, the project develops recommendations for other rural regions in similar processes. Finally, the partners develop policy briefings in order to raise awareness for rural regions among higher levels of government.
