MAP Position Paper (France) - Alternative Rural futures (Foresight)

This position paper is the results of the work carried out by the PACA Sud Multi-Actor Platform in France, which continued on reflecting about the future of its rural areas. The document outlines the results of a SHERPA foresight exercise. The goal of this exercise was to inform and assist the decision-making process through the creation of a dialogue on the future of rural areas among civil societies, researchers, and policy-makers around locally relevant matters. 
It emerges that an approach as close as possible to the territories (at the level of a living area) is essential and that the different decision levels must be better known and better coordinated. Administrative and financial procedures, in particular concerning European projects, including within the framework of the ERDF and the EAFRD, must be simplified, and the financing tools be better suited to the needs and capacities of project promoters, including in terms of pre-financing.