Multifunctional role of women as a key driver for rural development

The MORE project centers on improving training access and quality for rural European women, acknowledging their multifaceted roles within families, communities, and the labor force. Despite their significant contributions to rural life and socio-economic development, rural women encounter challenges, including limited opportunities, structural labor market issues, and inadequate representation in ownership and decision-making processes within agriculture. The MORE consortium, operating within diverse rural contexts, seeks to address these challenges by empowering rural women. The project aims to bridge gaps by enhancing skills, providing educational opportunities, and facilitating direct involvement in local social, policy, and economic processes. It plans to conduct extensive research on multifunctionality, develop ten e-learning training courses, and establish a digital community for rural women. These initiatives will be driven by direct feedback from target groups, ensuring relevance and efficacy in addressing the multifaceted challenges faced by rural women. Ultimately, MORE aspires to enable rural women to become active agents of change within their communities and contribute to rural sustainability and development.

MORE aims to empower rural women by enhancing their skills and encouraging active participation in local communities within the context of EU's changing rural landscape. Recognizing the multifunctional roles women play in rural settings, the project emphasizes their vital contributions to local development and rejuvenation. This initiative seeks to create inclusive opportunities for rural women. Central to its success is the collaborative design of core products with stakeholders to ensure relevance and sustainability. The project will establish "Rural Women Hubs" (RWHs) across 7 rural territories. These hubs will serve as focal points for empowerment and resource-sharing, supporting rural women's growth and development. Guided by partners with expertise in EU advocacy, MORE's educational efforts will address multifunctionality-related skills. The project aims to create adaptable educational content, benefitting multiple EU countries, to improve access to vital qualifications. MORE envisions the development of new expertise and tools for EU stakeholders, empowering women and advocating for improved rural services, education, and infrastructure to foster sustainable livelihoods and prevent further urban migration.

The project foresees 3 main "Project Results", plus complementary activities including local activities with RHWs, dissemination, sustainability and project management. The core project products include: 1) Development of the first training programme for multifunctional rural women. MORE will tackle different fields of multifunctionality through 10 e-courses on core skills related to multifunctionality, which emerged from partners' research and interviews with local stakeholders: professional, digital, social and personal skills. The training content and tools will be designed with the input of direct target groups and local stakeholders. The courses will be then tested in a pilot and further fine-tuned based on the feedback received. At least 220 rural women, including female migrants, and 20 educators/trainers will be engaged in the pilot. 2) Conduct extensive research on the multifunctional role of rural women: concept, trends & patterns, policy framework, best practices, etc. The research study will conclude with specific guidelines and recommendations for the public and private sectors of rural territories, as well as for national and EU policy-makers. 3) Structure, launch and growth of the first EU digital community dedicated to multifunctional rural women, through the establishment of an innovative community platform for knowledge sharing, discussions, storytelling and free access to the MORE results. To complement these core technical activities, partners will promote local events such as conferences, talks, dialogue meetings, etc within their own hubs. Hubs will be conceived as a sort of living lab for knowledge sharing. Key attention will be paid to dissemination & valorisation activities, respectively to raise awareness of the project and ensure transferability and sustainability of results. A physical multiplier event in each participating country will be organised, and complemented with digital promotion actions to reach a wider impact. Finally, project management issues will also have a dedicated space to ensure smooth and efficient implementation of activities within the budget and time requirements. Three transnational project meetings have been foreseen to ensure cooperation and knowledge transfer. These have been scheduled in a way to benefit from other parallel project actions e.g. in conjunction with a multiplier event to allow all partners' attendance.

Key expected impacts will be on project direct target groups (rural women), in terms of reinforcement of capacities to explore innovative forms of social, personal and labour value creation and new opportunities of growth and competitiveness. They will be the first ones to benefit from the training and explore personal and professional growth, and business opportunities, to reinforce their multifunctional role. The project will engage rural women together with other key local actors, in the RWHs, to share experiences, deepen skills, create new partnerships and alliances and raise awareness of the multifunctionality and gender balance promotion at local level. This is aimed to contribute to the development of the sense of community and create a better environment and open new collaborations in the rural areas. Concrete results are, among others: - 7 local hubs established, whose overall activities will reach 490 people; - 1 Digital Community Platform; - 10 e-learning courses on multifunctionality, co-created with stakeholders in dedicated meetings within the hubs and tested/evaluated by at least 250 individuals; - 1 comprehensive research study, whose results will be published in relevant publications; - 6 multiplier events; - 3 transnational project meetings; - 1 call for replication launched to seek commitment from further adult education organisations to adopt the training course; - concrete policy recommendation, also summarised in a official White Paper, to advocate for policy and financial support for rural female multifuctionality in the EU; - partners sustaining project products within their institutions in the long term, along with associated partners; - a wide pool of policy-makers contacted and informed about the project outcomes.