‘Smart Villages’ is a new concept that aims to help rural areas and communities to effectively respond to challenges and grasp new opportunities of the 21st century.
The concept of ‘Smart Villages’
Smart Villages concept brings a fresh new approach and opens up new opportunities to improve the sustainability and resilience of rural areas and communities and deliver on the promise of “A Better Life in Rural Areas”16. However, in order to make the most of this opportunity, it is important to specify and clarify the added value of Smart Villages to all interested stakeholders (from local villages to policymakers), in particular how it is different, new and innovative and adds value to existing policy tools and instruments.
21 villages were selected
to receive support to become ‘Smart Rural Areas in the 21st Century!’
Coming from 21 different countries, the villages represent a broad spectrum of rural profiles, assets and challenges, providing thematic and geographical balance.
The project pre-selected an initial 5 villages during its preparatory phase in 2019. These villages have already developed their smart village strategies and are turning their thoughts towards implementation.
Following an open application and a systematic three-tier assessment process, which ran between March and June, the project has now confirmed the selection of an additional 16 villages – more than the 12 villages foreseen – that will now join the project. The addition of 4 extra villages was made possible with the kind support of some of the National Rural Networks (NRNs) that agreed to support the villages jointly with the Smart Rural 21 project.
Remetea village from Harghita, Romania was selected as part of the additional 4 villages that will receive support from the project in order to develop a smart village strategy.
Follow us to read more about the 21 smart villages.