Unified client service centres for rural development and smart governance in Latvia

ArticleNowadays rapid increase of technological environment allows residents to be more mobile, choose working place, different from one’s place of residence, start a new business or transfer company to rural areas, thus promoting polycentric development of a territory and increasing capacity of rural territories. It means that government should think of smart governance and service provision, providing different government services at one place. From June 2015 until December 2015, under the concept of improvement of public service system, the government of the Republic of Latvia established 75 unified state and local government customer service centres. Service centres operate on a local basis and in accordance with the uniform principles, provide customer with one place to access multiple public services. The objective of the present article is to evaluate the necessity and current activity of unified customer service centres and their contribution to smart governance of the country. The necessity for unified client service centres in the rural areas were therefore assessed with the analysis of attributable data, theory on establishment of such centres, and residents’ survey, which showed that a big part of customers of the present centres are residents of neighbouring towns and cities where the regional governmental and local institutions are located, but they are attracted by the possibility to receive all the necessary services at one time

Changes in composition and spatial distribution of knowledge-based economy in rural areas of Latvia

ArticleOne of the features in the 21st century is growth of knowledge - based economic sector, which is referred as n ew growth theory. New growth theory reflects the attempt to understand the role of knowledge and technology in driving productivity and economic gr owth. In this view, key factors are investments in research and development, education and training and new managerial work structures. The aim of research is to estimate the composition and geographic location of knowledge economy and its perspectives in rural areas of Latvia in post - crisis stage. A special focus was placed on the mentioned processes in territorial units of the regions – municipalities , as the life of residents is influenced not only by national policies, but also by on - going processes in the administrative territories of local governments. The Eurostat classification of industries was used for the analysis of c hanges in composition and spatial distribution of knowledge - based economy. D ata were processed by quantitative and qualitative stat istical analysis, as well as grouping methods. The analysis of the information allows concluding that: municipalities with high and medium - high business is increasing and the business directions with bioeconomic features are the fastest growing ones in ter ms of composition. It must be stated that the economic growth in the rural territories was greatly affected by the quality of local governance and the fact that local community residents’ readiness for active, innovative and inclusive action is strengthene d