Good practice:

Smart Villages Strategy

Smart villages are communities in rural areas that develop smart solutions to deal with challenges in their local context. They build on existing local strengths and opportunities to engage in a process of sustainable development of their territories. They rely on a participatory approach to develop and implement their strategies to improve their economic, social and environmental conditions, in particular by promoting innovation and mobilizing solutions offered by digital technologies. Smart villages benefit from cooperation and alliances with other communities and actors in rural and urban areas. The initiation and implementation of smart village strategies may build on existing initiatives and can be funded by a variety of public and private sources.
Aosta Valley Autonomous region is the leader of Eusalp's Action Group 5, which has as one of its major strategic initiatives the idea to transpose the concept of smart cities to rural municipalities.
Important works on Smart Villages have already been carried out, e.g. in the Alpine Space Programme project 2018-2021. Now the action group will build on these experiences and spread the knowledge to the widest possible range of mountain and rural villages and regions, with the goal of
building up a strong alpine Smart Villages Community.

Smart Villages Approach is funded by different financing mechanisms at a European, National, Regional and Municipal level. For further information check the document "Financial Support mechanisms
for Smart Villages and Smart Regions" at this link: https://www.alpine-region.eu/sites/default/files/up

The "Smart Villages" approach will be adopted by the Aosta Valley Autonomous Region in its Strategic Plan of Sustainable Development. Digital Technologies allow new solutions for the organization and distribution of services on the territory, and they turn out to be particularly useful in those territories characterized by a strong presence of remote areas and communities.

Smart Villages policy could be implemented in other rural, mountainous areas. Smart Villages policies provide a great example of a process of involving regional stakeholders as well as the population itself.