Place of rural areas in the current strategies of voivodeship development – directions and goals of development vs. reality

Regional development strategies are the result of many months of work involving a large group of people. Marshal offices spend considerable means for their elaboration, collaborating with multiple stakeholders and organizing a broad public consultation. In the view of the constant transformation of spatial structure and the emergence of new circumstances modifying existing regional development trends, from time to time the strategy documents are updated. A significant impact on the changes in the strategies entries should be have, among others, the scientific community, undertaking evaluation of these documents. The results of such studies can be used in improving further updates, so that regional strategies better fulfill their function and become a sufficient tool of regional policy. The authors attempt to develop a detailed and critical analysis of the regional strategy in the field of issues related to rural areas. The main objective of the study is to diagnose and assess the current regional development strategies in terms of goals and directions of development assigned by them for rural areas. This evaluation was performed under the European Funds Competition at National Cohesion Strategy level - second edition, organized by the Department of Structural Policy Coordination, Ministry of Regional Development.