logoAA Conference logo

ms Janja Kokolj

The Comprehensive Countryside Development and Village Renovation (CCDVR) Programme in Slovenia

In 1991, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry started the implementation of a comprehensive countryside development and village renovation programme, thus making the first step towards a comprehensive agricultural and countryside policy with the aim of ensuring equal treatment of agricultural and productive activities, the protection of the Slovene countryside and villages, their future development, the preservation and maintenance of cultural landscape, the protection of fertile land and the preservation of the Slovene countryside population density.

In the process of adaptation to European Union standards, Slovenia has proven to have chosen the right path in terms of the comprehensive countryside development activities. The government of the Republic of Slovenia has passed the framework of the agricultural policy reform, together with countryside development in its fourth pillar. The countryside development reform consists of local countryside development programmes, regional countryside development programmes and participation in large-scale regional programmes as main activities. The above-mentioned activities allow for a harmonised approach of the ministries, and for a bottom-up functioning of the programmes.

On the national level, countryside development is organised and co-financed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. The Structural Policy and Countryside Department, formerly known as the CCDVR department, has been shaping and establishing the methodology for the materialisation of CCDVR projects in several small areas since 1991. The CCDVR projects have from the very beginning consisted of the following phases:

- the preparation for CCDVR,
- the introduction of CCDVR and
- the execution of CCDVR.


The CCDVR programme aims at:

- establishing a better motivation for the application of activities fostering a further development of the CCDVR areas (the creation of the development motive),
- setting the development goals within CCDVR areas, i.e. establishing the situation all or the vast majority of CCDVR area inhabitants wish to obtain (the creation of the development vision),
- making good use of the CCDVR-project-area potentials for carrying out and monitoring development projects and activities,
- training with a view to establishing advantages and disadvantages, opportunities and risks in the areas to be included in comprehensive development projects (training and education),
- ensuring a comprehensive treatment and planning of all the development goals and projects in the CCDVR development plan.

The analysis process of the CCDVR areas' development potentials has been simplified through the recognition and typology of factors influencing development activities. The factors have been classified into five working areas, referred to as spaces, i.e.:

- the living space,
- the inhabiting space,
- the social space,
- the cultural space and
- the working space.

Village renovation is part of the countryside development process. With village renovation, only part of the emphasis is placed on the village physiognomy. Village renovation, as well as country development, is a comprehensive process, and does not consist only of facade renovation, village-square renewal, street-paving, and electricity and communication cable-installation projects, but also of the re-establishment of interpersonal relationships among village dwellers. Village renovation therefore often comprises the re-introduction of social and cultural activities aiming at the re-establishment of social contacts. In other words, village renovation is both a physical and social process.

The paper describes successful and unsuccessful examples of village renovation over the last ten years.