Sweden

The Swedish DESERVE project operates in two of the Northern counties - Norrbotten and Västerbotten.  In these counties 8 out of 29 municipalities are actively participating in the DESERVE project.  The municipalities are interested in how best to co-ordinate public, private and voluntary organisations within the constraints of local conditions.  It is particularly necessary in remote and rural areas to ensure that these three sectors are co-ordinated and the Swedish programme has examined the Scottish way of running Village Halls and Service Points as these are of specific interest for participating municipalities.  The municipalities are keen to develop the internet as a method of delivering further services and the Swedish partners have also studied an Icelandic project which uses the internet for communication and service delivery.

The participating municipalities in Norrbotten and Västerbotten visited Scotland as the first of their project study visits.  On their return to Sweden members of the group used experiences gained on this visit to develop services in their local area.  Within the municipalities work has started to establish local partnerships with representatives from the village, politicians and civil servants.  Representatives from these local partnerships have also had a study visit to Iceland.  The study visits have led to useful contacts for villages in Sweden who are developing local services.  The Scottish Village Halls and and Service Points have given impulses to develop the Swedish Village Halls and has led to further services being developed within the hall. 

The Icelandic communication and services through the internet projects were presented to a well attended conference.  Many of the villages in Norrbotten and Västerbotten have broadband so in the work of developing services there will be different solutions of using IT connected to the Village Hall / Service Point.

Two examples of villages where transferability of the good use of transnational co-operation is illustrated are:

Byske: Includes four rural shops who want to combine commercial and public service connected to the shop.  The representatives from Byske made useful contacts with the Scottish Co-Op when visiting Scotland, and Scottish Co-Op staff have also attended a Swedish DESERVE conference in Sweden.

Rusksele: In Rusksele there is a restaurant for the elderly and school attendees.  People were inspired by a visit to Ullapool (Scotland) and felt that the service and local businesses would both benefit from more co-operation between these sectors.