Strengthening digital skills of rural people to benefit from the digital era
08 June 2023 | 09.00 to 13.00 CET
Good Practice webinar of the Rural Pact Support Office
Digital skills are a must in the era of digitalisation. They are considered essential for businesses to be competitive and for citizens to benefit from the improved access to jobs and public and private services digitalisation can provide, in particular in rural contexts. While there are examples of rural areas already exploiting the potential of digitalisation, there is still a persisting digital divide in Europe between rural, peri-urban and urban areas in terms of digital connectivity, skills and capacities for technological development. The efforts in providing quality digital infrastructure in rural areas need to be complemented with enhanced capacities for rural actors to maximise its use. However, the lack of digital skills in many rural areas, where less than half of the households in sparsely populated areas have at least basic digital skills, only 20% have above digital skills and 2.5% are Information and Communication Technology (ICT) specialists (rural in digital index), mirrors socio-economic inequalities between these areas and urban areas.
Objectives
- Enabling exchanges and learning from local experiences and initiatives that boost digital skills development of, for instance, youth, elderly or businesses in rural areas;
- Building the capacity of participants to promote digital skills through anticipating, planning and delivering effective high-quality projects responding to the rural needs;
- Encouraging and mobilising rural pact community members to make a commitment to the pact and/or to undertake actions linked with digital skills in their specific context.
- The webinar is targeted at project implementers and developers of digital skills initiatives in rural areas targeting various stakeholder groups (youth, elderly and businesses) and potential project holders including local, regional and national private and public actors.