Urban-Rural Linkages in Poland

Annex A. Benchmarking issues governing urban-rural linkages in Poland – Recommendations for action

Features of urban and rural areas that impact urban-rural linkages

• Poland has a higher share of population living in towns and semi-dense areas and a lower share of the population in cities than the average in OECD countries.

• Poland is characterised by a marked suburbanisation, with population re-settling from core cities to suburbs.

• Suburbanisation is led by population growth in commuting zones of FUAs and decrease of population outside FUAs.

• Polish FUAs are dispersed, with a high share of population living in commuting zones.

• The settlement structure differs across regions and FUAs.

• FUAs in Poland are characterised by relatively low-density development. A large share of commuting zones within FUAs in Poland is rural and suburban.

• While urban core cities are experiencing shrinking population, FUAs are registering population growth. The larger the FUA, the higher the population growth rate.

• Population is ageing but ageing is not homogeneous across the territory. Metropolitan regions have a higher elderly dependency ratio.

• Poland offers a relatively high degree of accessibility to essential public services (i.e. public transport, education and health).

• Digital accessibility is improving but shows a marked urban-rural divide.

• While the settlement structure is rather dispersed across Poland, jobs opportunities are still strongly anchored to urban areas.

• FUAs are integrated in terms of functions as commuting zones also host workplaces as well as residential areas.

• FUAs grew more than rest of Poland in the last decade, but they differ in terms of economic growth.

• Medium-sized cities losing their socio-economic functions are mostly located outside FUAs isolated from larger urban centres.

Pillar 1: Greater understanding of rural and urban conditions and linkages and better integration

Recommendations in OECD framework	Policy issues (challenges)	Recommendations	Examples of good practice	Key actors
Understand the different potential and challenges of urban and rural area, through the use of robust evidence (production of data at the appropriate spatial level). Encourage greater integration between urban and rural areas through better access to services, jobs and amenities. Use the rural-urban governance framework to help identify the different types of partnerships in the territory and to better target support.	Poland’s regional policy framework (e.g. National Strategy for Regional Development [NSRD]; Strategy for Responsible Development [SRD]) does not identify existing urban-rural linkages across well-being dimensions (e.g. economic, training and education or circular economy) at the local level nor map potential linkages.	Improve the identification of existing urban-rural linkages in the country across well-being dimensions and reflect this in national development strategies (e.g. SRDD) through a data collection exercise (e.g. commuting, education, jobs location, natural resources) to improve understanding of the urban-rural dynamics and the extent of their interdependences. Recognise the particularities of urban and rural municipalities to identify synergies and complementarities among different areas.	Chile’s National Urban Policy France’s “city-countryside reciprocity contracts” Germany’s Demonstration Project of Spatial Planning for cross border functional regions Turkey’s Sustainable and Integrated Development strategy	National government with the support of the Development Policy Co-ordination Committee and regional governments
	The national policy framework (e.g. National Urban Policy [NUP], and Strategy for Responsible Development [SRD]) does not explicitly recognise urban and rural interactions within policies or strategies for inter-municipal cooperation.	Ensure the inclusion of an urban-rural development component in the new versions of the national urban policy and the Strategy for Responsible Development acknowledging the particularities of urban-rural interactions to facilitate co-operation and the attainment of well-being goals. Ensure national strategies for regional development include measures to foster urban-rural linkages (e.g. co‑ordination mechanisms, sources of financing of investment projects in functional urban areas) and ensure they are replicated at the regional level.	Chile’s National Urban Policy Colombia’s National Urban Policy Poland’s proposed new National Urban Policy Spain’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience national strategy	All levels of government

Pillar 2: Address rural-urban challenges with a functional approach

Recommendations in OECD framework	Policy issues (challenges)	Recommendations	Examples of good practice	Key actors
Look beyond city-centred labour markets and embrace a wider set of rural-urban interactions Encourage territories to identify their strategies around functional geographies where urban-rural interactions extend beyond administrative boundaries. Promote the use of flexible planning tools able to encompass a space of functional relationships between urban and rural areas.	The Polish national development policy framework (e.g. SDR, NUP, National Rural Policy [NRP]) and the EU instruments for co-operation (e.g. ITI, CLLD) do not promote partnerships among rural municipalities within and outside functional urban areas (FUAs), and there is lack of national financial and institutional incentives (e.g. access to additional sources of funding) to promote co-operation between FUAs and rural municipalities outside the functional area.	Promote the participation of municipalities outside FUAs in ITI projects and/or develop Local Action Group projects that cover municipalities within and outside FUAs. The national government should consider ways to support nascent associations through dedicated funding streams and/or regulatory measures such as supra-local development strategies.	Rennes Métropole, France.	National government, in particular the Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Development, and regional (voivodeship) governments.
	There is a general lack of co-ordination of planning, service design and delivery across different policy sectors and among administrative units particularly in the local development strategies.	Reward local governments that include measures to support urban-rural partnerships in their local development strategies by facilitating their participation in national investment programmes that require local co-operation or sharing the experience of local governments that have done so. Promote the creation of urban-rural partnerships through the local development strategies (LDS).	Participation of the Nakieski County in the Local Action Group Association "Partnership for Krajny and Pałuki” Poznań City Development Strategy 2020 Białystok City Development Strategy 2020	National and local governments (counties and municipalities)
	Spatial and land use planning challenges (e.g. low coverage) constrain urban-rural partnerships, mostly at the metropolitan level. Local spatial development plans are not co-ordinated with neighbouring municipalities.	Adopt incentives (e.g. locational management policies) and governance structures for municipalities to undertake (development and land use) planning based on the functional urban areas to control urban sprawl by, for example, aligning urban growth and infrastructure planning; public acquisition of land, development impact fees, mixed-use zoning, transport oriented zoning. Ensure the implementation of the 2020 reforms to the Act on Principles of Implementation of Development Policy, particularly regarding the elaboration of supra-local development strategies.	Comprehensive land use planning in France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The G21 Geelong Alliance Regional Growth Plan - Australia	Regional and local governments
	Local governments face capacity constraints for implementing regional planning and investment. Municipalities face difficulty delivering on their responsibilities particularly the larger and more costly ones.	Formal inter-municipal co-operation arrangements offer a flexible way to generate capacity, efficiency gains and costs savings. Adopt tools and mechanisms for local planning by giving functional areas operating with ITI funds the possibility to better integrate (or valorise) their territorial strategies and plans within the relevant Regional Programmes; and avoid differentiating between urban and rural areas in planning at functional (metropolitan) level.	Rennes Métropole, France Business Joensuu Ltd in North Karelia, Finland	Regional and local governments
	Metropolitan planning remains underdeveloped largely due to the limitations set in the Metropolitan Act on the formalisation of metropolitan areas.	Reform or adopt a new Metropolitan Act that facilitates the creation of metropolitan unions at statutory level. Develop guidelines for the preparation of the supra-local development strategy. Consider the creation of metropolitan authorities within FUA in specific domains such as public transport and planning.	Central Bohemia and the city of Prague agreements for transport provision The Consortium for Transport in the Grater Madrid Area Vancouver metropolitan region – transport and development planning	All levels of government.

Pillar 3: Encourage the integration of urban and rural policies by working towards a common national agenda

Recommendations in OECD framework	Policy issues (challenges)	Recommendations	Examples of good practice	Key actors
Promote the use of common policy instruments to address potential conflicts and trade-offs between urban and rural agendas. Encourage the participation of different government levels in rural-urban partnership, to achieve a better policy integration. Ensure alignment between regional strategies and plans devised locally to facilitate wider stakeholder involvement.	There is low integration between urban and rural national policies, which hinders common strategic goals to promote urban-rural development.	Better integrate/co-ordinate urban and rural national strategies. The National Urban Policy (NUP) could include an objective and implementation mechanisms to support the development of rural areas within FUAs and around them as a necessary action to complement urban development. The NUP could specify the benefits rural areas gain from urban development (e.g. access to markets, consumer goods, farm inputs) and the benefits urban areas obtain from rural development (e.g. food, water, raw materials, clean air).	Colombia’s National Urban Policy Poland’s new National Urban Policy 2030	National government with the support of the Development Policy Co-ordination Committee.
	Poland has already embarked on improving multi-level relationships focused on strengthening the institutional environment, but relations across levels of government could be further reinforced to support the setting up and management of urban-rural partnerships.	Strengthen territorial contracts as a tool to co-finance investment. Ensure that priorities, objectives and policy implementation are aligned across levels of government. Enhance consultation across levels of government.	UK City Deals Australia City Deals	All levels of government

Pillar 4: Promote an enabling environment for rural urban partnerships.

Recommendations in OECD framework	Policy issues (challenges)	Recommendations	Examples of good practice	Key actors
Develop trust and a shared vision of the territory by promoting pilot projects on easy “win-win” issues, education initiatives and dialogue facilitators. Ensure that the legal and political framework does not prevent the formation of rural-urban partnership. Encourage co-operation between rural and urban actors through appropriate incentives (e.g. platform for dialogue, financial incentives, etc.). Encourage the involvement of the relevant urban and rural stakeholders by promoting a fair partitioning of voting rights within the partnership.	Partnerships still struggle to involve private or non‑governmental actors as partners. Some urban-rural partnership have relied on non‑governmental organisations and private sector to materialise the joint project or service (e.g. in water management, social assistance), but these actors are not regarded as partners. Other partnerships are in fact led by private actors (e.g. food value chain, associations of local firms) and could be boosted with further support from local governments.	Incentivise the participation of private sector and other non-governmental organisations in urban-rural partnerships by ensuring the decision-making process in partnerships is inclusive and avoids dominant positions and overruling one partner against the others. Develop national and regional incentives to enter into ITIs such as financial support for non-governmental actors. Leverage privately run partnerships (e.g. food or business associations) to reach and include members from rural municipalities (e.g. support fee subscription in privately-run business associations for those in need). Promote an inclusive dialogue and participation in setting up and running urban-rural partnerships.	The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), Scotland (UK) Poland’s LAGs have individuals and private companies as members The Southern Ontario Scale-up Platform, Canada The Centre for Ocean Ventures & Entrepreneurship (COVE), Canada The Association to the Food Bank in Grudziądz "Grudziądzki Bank Żywności"	All levels of government
	Building –up partnerships among local governments is still a relatively new concept and mainly focused on project based trigger by external funding. The country lacks long-standing traditions of co-operation, particularly across rural and urban spaces, which enhances risks of partnership’ dissolution when there are issues or good results take more time than expected.	Promote a shift from project based funding to programmes supporting integrated investment actions at the level of functional urban areas comprising urban and rural partners. Develop clear actions in the design and structure of partnerships to help improve trust and reduce inter-municipal competition among communities. Focus first action of partnerships on win-win short term projects and strategies to make evident that cooperation can be effective. Establishing partnership structures that offer equal voice and vote to all partners, regardless size and financial capacity. Strengthening regional coordination platforms and instruments to trigger partnerships for the implementation of initiatives of supralocal importance (e.g. Regional Territorial Forums or the Regional Territorial Observatory).	The Gwangju/Jeollanam-do (Korea), approach to a “win-win consultative body” The Nuremberg Metropolitan Region (Germany)- the Bad Windsheim Declaration signalling the principles for partnerships The forthcoming National Urban Policy 2030’s identification of trust as a barrier for local cooperation	All levels of government
	Some partnership structures specially those through EU funds can involve heavy administrative process for local governments. Moreover, bilateral agreements to form partnerships inside metropolitan association require staff capacity and time. This process can hamper capacity of rural municipalities to join partnerships as they might lack staff capacity.	Facilitate the formation of urban-rural partnerships by simplifying administrative process and reduce red tape to conduct urban-rural partnerships.	Poland’s Advisory Support Centre role to support local capacity Partnerships within the ITIs Lublin Functional Area and Bydgoszcz Functional Area have experience in overcoming administrative burden	National and regional governments
	Local governments seem to be increasingly involving a wide range of stakeholders in development planning and other decision-making processes. The problem is that Poland’s Spatial Planning and Development Act of 27 March 2003 does not provide guidance to local planners on participatory mechanisms.	Enable participatory processes for stronger urban-rural linkages by testing or analysing regional and local development strategies through an inclusive lens, and diversifying the participation in LAGs and promoting the use of participative budgeting.	Participatory processes in Prague, Czech Republic and Vancouver, Canada	Regional (voivodeship) and local governments
	Local governments largely depend on national grants and subsidies but have a leading role in investing in projects that matter to metropolitan (functional) areas and contribute to strengthen urban-rural linkages. Municipalities are being charged with new tasks financed by subsidies. The financial autonomy of local governments, measured by the share of tax revenues in total revenues (tax + subsidies) decreased in 2010-2019.	Increase the tax autonomy of local governments to reduce the dependency of local and regional authorities on state transfers. This requires further decentralising revenues by granting larger tax autonomy to local governments, more taxing power over rates and bases, in particular property tax, and strengthening own-source revenues. Ensure that subnational financing have a functional approach by providing reliable sources of funding for metropolitan (functional) areas.	Measures to reduce transfer dependence through exploiting local tax base in Japan, Germany, Belgium and Italy Measures to raise spending power of local governments in Korea, Canada, France and the USA Mexico’s metropolitan fund	All levels of governments
	Municipalities’ limited human resource capacity constrains co-operation and joint work and public service provision is costly that only joint investment across municipalities may make it possible.	Consider the viability of establishing shared service bodies in functional areas. Develop strategies to enhance local governments’ public workforce skills and competences (e.g. training, performance management,) and improve working conditions (e.g. better salaries). Continue using the School of City Leaders programme to develop leadership capacity in local governments. Invest in developing the strategic planning skills of local leaders and officials.	The city of Płock use of the online training provider specialised in Polish local self-government called Akademia Wspólnoty to improve training Italy - the Calabria, Friuli-Venezia-Giulia and Umbria regions have jointly set-up a registry of chartered accountants specialised in the management and control of programmes co‑financed by ESIF.	Regional (voivodship) and local governments

Pillar 5: Clarify the partnership objectives and related measures to improve learning and facilitate the participation of key urban and rural actors.

Recommendations in OECD framework	Policy issues (challenges)	Recommendations	Examples of good practice	Key actors
Set clear and realistic objectives, tailored to the specificities of each place, to motivate urban and rural actors. Set the criteria for the use of effective monitoring without discouraging urban-rural co-operation (e.g. using a small number of indicators; tailoring the evaluation to the scale and scope of the rural-urban partnership; promoting open data). Facilitate the exchange of good practices and knowledge acquired though the rural-urban partnership. Assist rural-urban partnership to assess its results and provide information and knowledge about the territory.	Existing urban-rural partnerships do no adopt a anticipatory and forward-looking approach, which makes them vulnerable to unexpected shocks (e.g. economic crisis, rapid digitalisation trend) that can hinder reaching the final goal and thus hampers the partnership.	Ensure that institutionalised urban-rural partnerships help facing the impacts of megatrends such as ageing population, digitalisation and climate change, and define policy actions to face them. The latter can be done by prioritising deployment of speed broadband connectivity as well as training local communities in the use of new (digital) technologies.	Ireland’s National rural Policy: Our Rural Future	Local governments
	There is no a formal platform or space that actively works to share information on good practices in developing urban-rural partnerships.	Enhancing spaces for dialogue in a frequent and formal basis can help build trust among local actors. Build a repository (on line platform) of existing partnerships mechanisms in the country including ITIs and CLLD with goals and achievements to understand the functioning of partnerships. It should display lessons about existing urban-rural partnerships in Poland, their achievements and governing structure, assets and bottlenecks supported by proactive dissemination strategy to reach remote municipalities. This information can be consigned in the national development plans to be followed by subnational government levels.	Poland’s Public Services Monitoring System developed by the Ministry of Interior and Administration Canada: The Southern Ontario Scale-up Platform	National and regional governments

Horizontal pillar - EU related issues

Recommendations in OECD framework	Policy issues (challenges)	Recommendations	Examples of good practice	Key actors
Further leverage on EU policy implementation and funds to strengthen urban-rural partnerships. Improve the use of Integrated Territorial Investments (ITI) and Community Led Local Development (CLLD).	Urban –rural partnerships in Poland have been mainly triggered by the EU Cohesion Policy and its place-based approach and instruments (e.g. ITI and CLLD). While these instruments have had a positive use and impact, some issues remain: Many partnerships triggered by EU funding, are motivated more by a short term interest (e.g. to obtain funding) than a strategic long-term well-being perspective. Partnerships set up through EU tools are not always agile enough to answers quickly to the changing needs of partners and territories.	Setting up incentives for a wider use of ITI and CLLD specifically targeted to create urban-rural partnerships. Complement EU funding with more agile national financial and instructional instruments that promote strategic partnerships of municipalities beyond project specific funding and/or that promote partnerships of municipalities not covered by EU funds (e.g. municipalities outside FUAs and the urban inside FUAs). For example: (i) adopt a grant-based approach for given typologies of projects, (ii) make less use of the open call approach and promote negotiated procedures for the selection of projects to be supported.	e.g. see Box 3.6. on Co‑operation instruments inspired by the ITI mechanism Italian national strategy for Inner Areas	National and regional governments
	Co-operation among local governments is voluntary and partners should have an equal status in decision-making but local governments need to find new forms of co-operation mostly in the area of financing and using shared infrastructure.	Institutionalise inter-municipal co-operation allowing for flexibility and voluntary partnership building.	Italian National Strategy for Inner Areas	All levels of government
	ITI are a key element of the territorial strategy in Poland, although their functioning is often limited by the complexity to establish territorial and institutional unions	Give ITI unions more powers than just the designation of strategic projects and allow them to have managing authority for conducting the full procedure of open call for proposals. Issue new guidelines and adopt legislation to grant ITI unions powers to decide on who should or should not participate, but maintain flexibility. Local governments should continue having freedom in the scope of formalisation of partnerships in the new programming period.	e.g. ITI are used to delegate greater decision-making to local authorities in the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy and Belgium	All levels of government
	The Community Led Local Development (CLLD), implemented through the Local Actions Groups, has been an efficient tool for involving citizens and stakeholders at local level in developing concerted responses to the social, environmental and economic challenges of a given territory; however, it has not been used widely or at its full potential in Poland.	Extend the use of CLLD as a tool to combine multiple funds and to implement supra-local (urban-rural) development strategies. Produce a CLLD communication plan and encourage the organisation of CLLD Decision Day events where groups and organisations submitting bids. Invest in community leadership and capacity building for developing CLLD.		All levels of government
	The use of EU funds is key to strengthen urban-rural relations and deliver urban-rural partnerships. Poland has had a good performance in capitalising them, but critical issues remain: delays in planning, lack of synergies and coordination between administrative territories, lack of skills and capacity in local administrations and stakeholders, complex procedures for smaller localities, difficulties in integrating national and EU procedures.	Fully exploit the possibilities to integrate actions and funding offered by the new (2021-27) Cohesion Policy’s policy objectives and concentration, in particular by the new objective 5 "Europe closer to citizens". Activate integrated and/or complementary actions and funding (using ERDF, ESF+, RDF) with the specific aim to develop urban-rural linkages on well-defined development objectives (e.g. SME, tourism, connectivity). Explore and develop better complementarities between EU Structural Funds and the 2nd pillar of the Common Agricultural Policy (Rural Development pillar). Explore the possibility of using better and more integrated European Social Fund (ESF+) for developing urban-rural linkages (e.g. to increase the capacity of rural actors to develop CLLD and ITI). Elaborate Territorial Strategies, which favour an integrated or complementary use of ITI, CLLD and LEADER. Develop additional national legal and financing instruments to facilitate the preparation and implementation of ITI and CLLD (e.g. simplifies contracts, revolving funds for project preparations, etc.).		All levels of government