Social Infrastructure Services for Promoting Local Community Wellbeing in Lithuania

Abstract

Social infrastructure is largely related to various services for community, facilities and public spaces, relationships and networks among local community members. It is therefore obvious that social infrastructure could be viewed as an important factor for creating better opportunities for integration and participation in society, fostering functional capabilities of a community, acknowledging human rights, improving judgements related to overall life satisfaction. The links between social infrastructure services and focus on local community wellbeing in Lithuanian’s social science discourse has not been substantiated sufficiently yet. Consequently, this article aims at disclosing the importance of social infrastructure services in promotion of local community wellbeing. The research question of this article is formulated as follows: how social infrastructure services contribute and could promote wellbeing of local community. The methodological background is based on both theoretical and empirical findings pertaining to the topic. The research results have suggested that the need of local community for social infrastructure services should be evaluated more carefully in the context of wellbeing. These services have been found to play significant role in reaching a certain level of wellbeing in view of the place where people live, how they feel and how to evaluate the future of their living.

Assessment of Rural Social Infrastructure Services in Lithuania and Poland in the Context of Green Economy

“…Defining and characterising what is social infrastructure servicesthere can be different notions of it. Various authors (Spicker, 2009;Frolova et al, 2016;Vaznonienė, Kiaušienė, 2018) agree that social infrastructure services generally cover education, medical, post, transport, personal security, communication, public catering, communal utilities, police etc. -provided by mostly public sector.…”

“…SI services include various, but as but as recognized in many countries mostly public services: e.g., education institutions, medical authorities, police forces, post, suppliers of transportation services, banking, communal utilities etc. (Atkočiūnienė et al, 2014;Vaznonienė, Kiaušienė, 2018). Green economy is defined by UNEP (Fedrigo-Fazio, ten Brink, 2012) as one that results in improved human wellbeing and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities.…”