Economic and Social Impacts of Promoting Cultural Heritage Protection by the Czech Rural Development Programme 2007–2013

Abstract

Cultural heritage can play a very important role in local and regional development with economic and social effects. The European Union (EU) outlined a specific measure that is aimed at the protection and development of rural heritage within rural development policy in the programming period of 2007-2013. The main aim of this paper is to assess economic and social impacts of projects supported by EU Rural Policy in the Czech Republic during the period of 2007-2013. The implemented projects were located mainly in peripheral rural areas, both near to borders and in inner peripheries, which means that the measure was geographically well targeted. The results of the measure contribute to the restoration and reconstruction of historical monuments, churches, cemeteries and small sacral monuments which create an environment in rural settlements. This environment is very important for the community life and strengthening local identity. In the field of economic development, the results of this measure demonstrate only limited effects in supported villages.Key words: cultural heritage, rural development, evaluation. Klíčová slova: kulturní dědictví, rozvoj venkova, evaluace.

Participatory Research and Planning in Practice

“…This should help define a long-term path that can be applied in small and short-term steps, guaranteeing constant and visible progress. This finding can be correlated to Kotter's eight steps for institutional change that among others clearly underline the short-and long-term wins that each activity/process should try to achieve (Kotter 1996). The planning should be integrative, so as not to raise con-flicts and to respect the needs of all the sectors and all the social groups.…”

Inner peripheries: dealing with peripherality and marginality issues within the European policy framework

“…The EU policies should convey to a common target, and put the concept of "territory" at the basis of EU regions-oriented policies, better addressing the context specificities (Leco & Pérez, 2019), and in order to limit the overlaps among funding sources and emphasize the possible synergies. Some authors tried to ex-post assess the economic and social impacts of projects supported by EU funds (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013) programming period) at the municipal and national scales (Kouřilová & Pělucha, 2017). However, a contextualized ex-ante analysis incorporating specific territorial needs and priorities would be promising and useful (Las Casas et al, 2016), particularly to consider specific regional diversities (ESPON 2013b) with a place-based approach (Barca, 2009;Copus et al, 2017).…”