The challenges of a resilient and sustainable village development strategy and the resulting opportunities for rural areas were the focus of the online project conference “Land.Kultur.MorGEN – Opportunities for sustainable village development”, which was held by GEN Deutschland – Netzwerk für Gemeinschaften e. V. on January 30, 2021.
The event took place as part of the “Living in sustainable villages” (“Leben in zukunftsfähigen Dörfern”, LzD) project funded by the Federal Environment Agency and the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety and highlighted aspects of sustainable village development as well as successful concepts for creating better services of general interest and community identity building in rural areas. More than 100 participants attended the online conference to find out more about these topics in the context of digitalisation, education and value creation.
The first item on the day’s agenda was the presentation of specific examples of possibilities for sustainable and resilient consolidation of structures in village communities. Three case studies were used to identify factors for a sustainable and targeted village development strategy. The central anchor point of all approaches was the creation of a common village identity. From the communal cultivation of orchards or the establishment of a school as an anchor point for a holistic village development strategy based on this, all examples had in common that further and consistent steps in village and regional development could only follow through the initiating measure of creating a sense of community among the village population.
Subsequent presentations focused on strategies and approaches to village moderation in order to initiate the success factors in village communities described in the case studies. Concepts and solutions were also presented that address the opportunities of digitalisation in terms of village and regional development. In a pilot project, three municipalities in Rhineland-Palatinate were equipped with a local online marketplace to offer local goods a joint trading platform and thus strengthen local trade. Various other modules were developed from this pilot project. These include “DorfNews”, a local online portal with the aim of creating a bulletin board for citizens, associations and administration in village communities. In addition, the “DorfFunk”, a local communication center based on an app that enables citizens to get in direct contact with the administration, but also with each other, in order to share concerns, wishes and news.
As an online event, the Land.Kultur.MorGEN project conference provided a suitable framework for direct discussions with project participants in workshops. This made it possible to discuss the challenges of inter-municipal village development in the area of conflicting interests. To this end, the panel participants discussed different strategic approaches to consensual regional development processes.