2. TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED RURAL POLICY FOR POLAND – 125 Chapter 2. Towards an integrated rural policy for Poland This chapter examines the structure and focus of Poland’s national rural polices along with the development priorities and policy interventions of regions and local governments in rural areas and the role of the European Union in structuring supports. The chapter begins with an overview of national policies for rural development in Poland and how they have changed over time – from a sole focus on agriculture towards a greater focus on rural development more broadly. Following this, key areas of rural policy are discussed: agriculture; rural economic diversification; spatial, land-use and environmental policies; infrastructure; and public services. The chapter ends with a discussion of how the aforementioned set of policies could be better integrated for more effective rural development. OECD RURAL POLICY REVIEWS: POLAND 2018 © OECD 2018 126 – 2. TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED RURAL POLICY FOR POLAND Rural Poland has undergone a considerable transformation in recent decades. Some rural regions in Poland have seen a doubling of their productivity, massive investment in infrastructure and improvement in socio-economic outcomes in a relatively short amount of time. And yet, collectively, rural regions have not been catching up over the past years in terms of average gross domestic product (GDP) per capita (see Chapter 1). GDP per capita in rural regions stood at 80% of the national average in 2014, below the OECD average of 90%. There remain considerable disparities between urban and rural areas and between rural areas within different parts of the country in terms of employment, economic growth and access to services (see Chapter 1). Further, despite support for agricultural modernisation and economic diversification, the transformation of rural areas has proceeded slowly in many cases. Rural policies are important for Poland for a number of reasons. Rural residents account for a large share of the population (approximately 40%) and the well-being of rural residents is critical to the growth and prosperity of the country. Poverty is the highest in rural areas and the highest among agricultural households and as such, there is a clear need for rural policies to support economic diversification and employment in order to help raise rural dwellers’ quality of life. Further, Poland has a polycentric settlement pattern with small and medium-sized cities dispersed throughout its territory. Stronger rural-urban linkages can result in better economic and social development outcomes and benefits for all participants. These serve as just a few examples that highlight the importance of rural policies for the country’s development. One of the most impactful events for rural development was integration with the European Union in 2004 and the role of Cohesion Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy in particular. While once focused almost entirely on agriculture, there is an increasingly multidimensional view of rural development that encompasses support for economic diversification. In equal measure, there has been a shift from a highly centralised top-down approach to policy making towards one where a broader array of actors are involved in elaborating and implementing policy, including community-based groups. Successive decentralisation reforms have been formative in promoting local community development; however, this process of decentralisation is by no means complete and moreover, silos between agricultural and rural development policies persist. Rural policy in Poland today is shaped by a web of EU, national and regional policies across the agricultural, economic, environmental, social and cultural realms that create various incentives and disincentives for rural development. As will be discussed, more could be done to align these incentives and improve the effectiveness of rural policies based on local conditions and needs. At times, contradictory policies detract from overarching aims. Positively, the national development framework adopted in 2009 enhances co-ordination of policies across ministries, including the many sectoral policies which impact rural development. However, the nature of territorially based investments is not always evident under the new approach and silos remain between how rural development is conceived across agricultural and regional development portfolios. While much has been achieved, more needs to be done to use EU funds in a strategic way that is complemented by domestic policies and interventions. This chapter examines the set of rural policy measures that are important for rural Poland across a number of policy areas. It begins with an overview of rural policies in Poland, including how they have evolved in recent decades and the types of actors at the national, regional and local/community scales. Following this, policies to support the ongoing structural change of agriculture are discussed, with an emphasis on the dual OECD RURAL POLICY REVIEWS: POLAND © OECD 2018 2. TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED RURAL POLICY FOR POLAND – 127 nature of farming in Poland (i.e. big commercial farms coexisting with a large number of small, family farms) and its implications for public policy. Next, the programmes that support economic diversification are examined, followed by land use and environmental policies and programmes for rural infrastructure development. Finally, programmes for service delivery in rural areas are discussed. The chapter ends with a reflection on how the various policies examined can be better integrated across sectors and levels of government and be geared to the needs of rural residents and their communities. Overview of policies for rural development in Poland Rural policy in Poland has evolved over the past three decades, from an initial focus of rural areas as predominantly sites of agricultural production towards recognition of them as places with a diversity of economic, cultural and environmental functions. This multidimensional view of rural economies and hence, rural policy, is increasingly recognised across OECD countries (OECD, 2016f). There remain, however, markedly different approaches to rural policy across the OECD in terms of how these ideas are instrumentalised by national and regional governments. A general delineation can be made between narrow or broad rural policies (i.e. those that are targeted versus those that are overarching in nature). • Broad rural policy refers to efforts to influence all actions that impact rural areas within and by the different administrative sectors as part of the development of rural society. This approach has been adopted in Britain since the 2000s, for example through the idea of “rural mainstreaming” (Shortall and Alston, 2016; OECD, 2011).1 It is also evident in Finland, in its cross-sectoral Rural Policy Committee. • Narrow rural policies include all measures and instruments that are specifically targeted at rural development. As discussed in Chapter 1, the ways in which rural areas are defined is therefore particularly important for the design of such interventions. There are merits and drawbacks to each approach – broad versus narrow. In aiming to integrate different sectoral policy interventions, broad rural policies may address geographies beyond just rural. Overarching approaches that combine, for example, agriculture, transport and energy policies can lose territorial focus and/or may have unintended impacts on rural dwellers. In contrast, the narrow rural policy approach can suffer from being less cross-sectoral or integrated in its interventions. The appropriateness of either approach depends in large part on the nature of rural territories (e.g. the socio-demographic characteristics of the population and the structure of local economies) and their access to goods, services and infrastructure. In places where a significant share of the rural population lives far from services and faces social and economic marginalisation, narrower rural policies are needed. Where rural populations live close to urban territories (and hence services) and have lower levels of social and economic marginalisation, broader rural policies may be more appropriate. Poland, like most OECD countries, has a greater focus on narrow rural policies, such as the national rural development programme. However, these are complemented with broader policies such as the national and regional development strategies and in operational programmes, such as the programme targeting Poland’s eastern regions which have lower economic growth, dispersed settlement patters and higher rates of poverty. Policies and institutions for rural development in Poland are heavily influenced by the OECD RURAL POLICY REVIEWS: POLAND 2018 © OECD 2018 128 – 2. TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED RURAL POLICY FOR POLAND common policies and community method of the European Union. It is important to recognise that there are also a host of policies that are often sectoral in nature that impact rural areas and that are not targeted to place, but that can have territorial consequences nonetheless. These include policies and funding for education, healthcare and social services which may have unique (and sometimes unintended) territorial consequences. A benefit of the broad rural policy approach is that it aims to create a mechanism to overcome this lack of a territorial lens within sectoral policies. The relationship between broad, narrow and sectoral policy types are depicted in Figure 2.1. While this review focuses