Methodological approaches and applied evaluations of inclusive rural development

The purpose of the article is substantiation of the theoretical and methodological provisions of inclusive rural development and the development of guidelines for assessing social, economic and political changes in rural areas for compliance with the principles of inclusive development. Research methods. As a methodological base for the development of the problem under study, the provisions of the concept of inclusive growth and development, as well as rural development, were used. The research used methods: analysis and synthesis (in the study of the nature and main provisions of inclusive rural development), comparative analysis (in the analysis of methods for developing integrated indices and determining their advantages and disadvantages), statistical methods (for calculating the integral index of inclusive rural development). Research results. The research improves the theoretical and methodological principles of inclusive rural development and develops methodological approaches to its measurement. The proposed methodological approach is based on the measurement of inclusive rural development in two areas: the sectoral dimension, which includes the political, social and economic components of inclusion; a component dimension that assesses inclusion at the level of access, quality and distribution of goods and services. The existing methodological approaches to the development of integrated indices that can be used for measuring inclusive rural development are analyzed. Given the advantages and disadvantages of available methods, as well as the possibility of their application for the purposes of this study, the feasibility of using the method of weighted amounts for integrated assessment of inclusive rural development is justified. The normative approach was used as a method of standardization of indicators. It is established that the lag in the level of inclusive development in rural areas is -0.073 or -11.7% of national indicators. The variation of deviations in the components of sectoral inclusion is higher than in the component inclusion. In the sectoral dimension, the largest deviation of indices compared to national indicators is observed for social inclusion (-0.122 or -16.3%), and the smallest - for political (-0.04 or -6.8%). Variation of deviations from national indicators by types of inequality in access, quality and distribution of goods and services - by component inclusion, has a smaller range: -9.2… -13.2%. Scientific novelty. Theoretical provisions of inclusive rural development are developed and a methodological approach for its assessment is proposed based on the use of a two-dimensional matrix of indicators, which includes three sectoral dimensions (political, social and economic) and three component dimensions of inclusiveness (accessibility, quality and distribution of public goods and services). Practical significance. The developed methodological approach can be used to monitor the program documents implementation in the sustainable development sphere, the implementation of rural development policies and inclusive development. The flexibility of the methodological approach as for using different sets of indicators allows it to be implemented at the UTC level, which is planned to justify and test in the following publications. Tabl.: 3. Figs.: 1. Refs.: 13.