At the end of September 2021, SHERPA partners from the University of Pisa organised a new cluster meeting to support facilitators and monitors of SHERPA Multi-Actor Platforms (MAPs) in completing their foresight exercise.
During the meeting, MAP facilitators and monitors exchanged on the progress and experiences of the second cycle. Over the last months, several SHERPA MAPs have carried out a scenario foresight exercise for their rural areas. The first conclusions of these scenarios identified as main drivers of change the availability of services in rural areas, education and governance systems. In all instances, the need to consider the territorial differences of rural areas was clearly identified.
Most MAPs expressed concerns about the drop in stakeholder engagement, due to excessive online communication connected with COVID-19 and the publication of the MAP Position Papers linked to the Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas. The facilitators and monitors reflected on ways to stimulate and maintain stakeholder interest and engagement, raising awareness of how they as stakeholders can benefit from SHERPA’s activities and how valuable their commitment is for the project. The integration of the new MAPs and the organisation of workshops, dealing with busy agendas of participants (e.g. regional policy-makers) were other challenges highlighted by several participants.
In the coming period, the MAPs will be completing the monitoring and evaluation tool, and MAP Position Papers on Foresight will be published.
Find out more about the six SHERPA MAPs of this cluster:
- Multi-Actor Platform Rural Mapping Bulgaria
- Multi-Actor Platform PACA Sud in France
- Multi-Actor Platform Hungarian AKIS
- Multi-Actor Platform Tuscany in Italy
- Multi-Actor Platform Rural_PT in Centro region, Portugal
- Multi-Actor Platform Galician Rural Interfaces in Spain
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