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One of the maxims of the Government of Pere Aragonès i Garcia is to work for an entire Catalonia and this means providing services to all the municipalities, promoting territorial balance, to stop the depopulation of smaller towns and guarantee equal opportunities for people who want to live and work in the rural world.
Along these lines, the Generalitat de Catalunya has launched a series of actions such as the Statute of Rural Municipalities, the new system of mobile banking offices for municipalities that do not have a bank branch, and an economic incentive plan for health professionals who move to primary care centers with difficult coverage, among others.
Currently, 75% of the Catalan population lives in 15% of the territory, in urban municipalities, while the remaining quarter occupies 85%.
The Statute of Rural Municipalities is an innovative and pioneering text, which the Government has worked on together with the local world, and a legal framework that aims to curb depopulation and achieve territorial balance. Among other incentives, the Government proposes tax deductions for the transfer of residence to a rural municipality or for the purchase or rental of housing.
The Statute of Rural Municipalities defines for the first time what rural municipalities are, which is a consideration that has all those municipalities with less than 2,000 inhabitants and located in a rural region, that is to say, with a population density of less than 150 inhabitants per square kilometer.
The Government will give financial incentives to healthcare professionals who move to CAPs in rural areas. It is estimated that there are 73 difficult-to-cover primary care teams in Catalonia, one in five centres. Doctors will receive an annual increase of around 3,500 euros and nurses, midwives and social workers, 2,000 euros. The plan will cost the Department of Health 11.5 million euros per year.
Likewise, the Generalitat has enabled a system of mobile offices to provide bank offices to the 503 municipalities in Catalonia that do not have a bank branch. This is equivalent to bringing financial services to more than half of Catalonia’s municipalities.
This financial inclusion service will allow citizens to have access to the same operations that can be carried out in any bank branch: withdraw money from the teller, make transfers, consult conditions, contract services, etc.
Another outstanding measure has been the opening of rural schools in small municipalities where there were none to fight against depopulation. They are centers with few enrolled children and this means that they are grouped by different ages and not distributed by courses (as in an ordinary school). In the same vein, Education has also facilitated the opening of new rural nursery schools with the same objective of fighting against the loss of pupils. A total of 101 nursery schools have been opened.
Social Rights will fund 330 new places in comprehensive care services in the rural area. These are facilities for the elderly that have separate spaces to offer services similar to those of a day center and other complementary areas for workshops and services on an outpatient basis and at home, depending on the needs of the users and the their families
These services serve people over the age of 65, who live in rural areas. They are mainly located in counties with low population density, a high aging rate, a high percentage of small and scattered municipalities, and with difficulties in obtaining services.
The “Rural Women” project aims to visualize and recognize the contributions that women have made to the rural world. The project is built thanks to the collaboration of town councils, regional councils, museums and women’s organizations. These organizations are responsible for research and documentation of women’s lives with the aim of socially recognizing the hitherto invisible contributions.Many of the dissemination actions will be aimed at the younger population and educational centers.
Apart from this, the Government also gives aid for the contracting of cultural proposals in micro-towns (2.1 million); for the Arrelament program, which pursues population stabilization, territorial equity and equal opportunities; for the Odisseu program, which offers university students paid internships in companies or institutions located in rural municipalities; for forest management (5.5 million) or for fishing activity (19 million).
Also with regard to youth employment, it is planned to finance internship contracts for young fishermen who have just graduated to promote generational succession; and aid to encourage the self-employment of young people between 18 and 29 years old, where there is a specific item for those living in micro-villages for an amount of around 750,000 euros, and from which around fifty people have benefited teens.
