Rural proofing: guidance for policymakers

Rural proofing means assessing the implications for rural communities of all new policies and programmes. Policymakers need to be able to identify what life is like in a rural community and take this into account when designing and developing policy.

Rural proofing requires us to consider the wider rural community – not just farmers, growers and fishers, but everyone who lives in rural communities:

• their families
• those who live a rural lifestyle but work in an urban centre
• anyone else that supports the work of the primary sector more broadly, for example, the school teacher, church minister, store owner, or trucking firm operator.

If you have little or no experience of living or working in a rural area, get familiar. If you can’t visit a rural community, immerse yourself in resources such as TV’s Country Calendar, Radio NZ’s Country Life, the virtual publication published by Farmers Weekly), the Heartland Strong book, or browse Nuffield and Kellogg scholar reports.

Links to resources

Farmers Weekly virtual publication

Heartland Strong

Nuffield Scholar reports

Kellogg Scholar reports

Farmers Weekly videos [XLSX, 85 KB]

Farmstrong

Rural communities are diverse. They span a continuum from the urban boundary to truly remote, and include isolated farms, fishing communities, people living rurally on lifestyle blocks, and small towns that service rural areas. By some measures, up to 1 in 4 New Zealanders live in rural communities.

Rural communities tend to have different demographics from the New Zealand average. For example, they can have a higher proportion of Māori, older residents or children. However, the proportion of younger adults tends to be lower.

Rural communities have unique drivers and challenges, and these need to be considered when developing policy. 

Drivers

Employment in rural communities is often based in the primary industries and tourism:

• Residents may be impacted by the economic fortunes and challenges affecting those industries, such as environmental and health issues, floods and drought, and farmgate prices.
• Regulatory, market, and environmental changes can disproportionately affect rural communities.
• Seasonality can be important. Farming has periods of peak activity, such as lambing, calving or harvest. Additional activities that are possible at certain times of the year may be impossible to manage at other times.

Where a person lives and how they make their living in a rural community can be inseparable, especially when it is connected to work in the primary industries. In rural communities, changing employment may mean finding a new home or a new region to live in.

Challenges

The key challenges for people living in rural communities are infrastructure (roads, transport, telecommunications, broadband), health care, education, and employment.

Lower population densities and longer travel times to service centres, which may be centrally located, can impact access to essential services (health, education, emergency services) and community activities.

Some rural communities experience significant deprivation. Social and physical isolation, a lack of public transport, and less well-developed digital infrastructure can limit employment opportunities or the ability of residents to take part in social interactions.

Attracting and retaining young staff and their families in rural communities can be difficult if there are not services like preschools, schools, sports groups, churches, marae, health and maternity care.

The telecommunications network and transport infrastructure can be of variable quality. This can make online activities difficult or impossible, which affects access to information, education and government services.

For rural communities with a largely Māori population, all of these challenges are likely to be exacerbated – the communities are likely to be poorer, more remote, and therefore further from health and education services.

About rural communities

Rural communities are diverse [PDF, 149 KB] 

An urban/rural profile (2004) – Stats NZ

Census data from 2018 comparing rural NZ with all of NZ

Dwelling and household statistics [PDF, 216 KB]

Education and commuting statistics [PDF, 165 KB]

Health statistics [PDF, 172 KB]

Population statistics [PDF, 234 KB]

Work and income statistics [PDF, 211 KB]

Rural proofing means adding a rural lens to your normal policymaking process. Rather than designing your policy only for city and suburban communities, identify the expected benefits and implications and very importantly, the possible unintended consequences of the policy for rural communities.

Be creative. Try walking in their shoes (or gumboots) as you do this. Keep in mind the drivers and challenges that rural communities face, and remember that these can be exacerbated for communities with a largely Māori population.

Questions to consider

• What opportunities are there to advance rural communities in your policy?
• Will the wellbeing of rural communities and households be improved?
• Does the policy have synergies with other policies, from which you can achieve co-benefits?

In particular, consider access to transport, access to telecommunications, employment, health care, the needs of older people and children.

Other considerations

Identify potential barriers, challenges or limitations to how this policy may play out when considered alongside the drivers and challenges of rural communities. Consider social, cultural, environmental and economic factors when thinking about possible impacts and unintended consequences.

• Could there be unintended impacts of your policy beyond the target audience?
• Are there wider community impacts?
• How can you mitigate these? Using scenarios may be useful here.

Create user stories and test them with someone from a rural community or with regional staff from the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI). They will identify what does not fit in a rural context.

Could there be cumulative impacts from your proposed policy alongside other policies, whether MPI’s or other agencies’?

Consider the wider policy work programme across government.

Find out more

MBIE Regional Economic Activity Web Tool

Statistics NZ

Rural proofing requires early and ongoing engagement with stakeholders who are familiar with rural communities. Rural communities are often highly engaged in issues that affect their members. Stakeholders familiar with these communities will be able to help you understand the policy issue and its potential impact from their perspective, and may be able to suggest creative solutions for mitigation.

Don’t rely on people looking up information on the internet. Broadband connectivity and reliability issues may mean that you will get more engagement if you provide printed copies of consultation documents, perhaps through local councils. Recognise infrastructure time delays such as rural post, and allow more time for feedback.

Stakeholder engagement can be done through a simple phone conversation with the right person, or face-to-face (in their time, on their turf). Be prepared to fit into your stakeholders’ timetables rather than squeezing them into a Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 schedule, and allow for the seasonal nature of their employment.

Engagement with Māori is likely to be more successful if it comes from established networks and ongoing relationships – Te Arawhiti/the Office for Māori Crown Relations has useful guidelines for how to go about it.

Te Arawhiti: Crown engagement with Māori

Te Arawhiti: Guidelines for engagement with Māori

Rural contacts and organisations

MPI can help you identify relevant rural contacts and organisations.

Check our list of contacts and groups

Event calendars

Federated Farmers

Beef+Lamb NZ

Rural proofing means looking for opportunities to make adaptions to mitigate unintended impacts on rural communities. Policy makers should carry out an impact assessment of social, cultural, environmental and economic factors to identify impacts and possible unintended consequences.

There may be simple ways to adapt policy settings to mitigate unintended impacts on rural communities, for instance, consider whether delivery models or timeframes can be adapted to support communities to make the changes required.

When considering how to adapt a policy for rural communities, stakeholder consultation and testing will be vital. If you are able to mitigate undue impacts on rural communities, there is a better chance of compliance and therefore reduced enforcement costs.

Remember to keep parties updated, including stakeholders, relevant agencies and Ministers, of approved policies, mitigations, benefits, and unresolved implications.

Access to services

• Consider options to manage higher delivery cost per capita and the costs that are constant regardless of scale.
• Target funding to assist or encourage provision in rural areas, and deliver equitable access to services for rural people.
• Where private sector provision is tendered, allow time for local or innovative solutions for rural issues to be included.
• Share resources or staff across agencies.  

Infrastructure

• Consider if there is a need to subsidise transport services (e.g. school buses, emergency helicopters, transport assistance to health care).
• Consider mobile services to rural areas.
• Facilitate shared use of facilities.
• Contractually require delivery in isolated rural areas.
• Provide exemptions or concessions where appropriate for rural areas.
• Enable alternative delivery methods to improve accessibility (phone, email, apps).
• Encourage combined servicing of several providers.

Government organisations' resources and tools

DPMC Policy Project

Policy Methods Toolbox

Statistics New Zealand

Regional Economic Activity web tool

Treasury’s Impact Analysis Requirements

Treasury’s living standards framework