PERSPECTIVES FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT AFTER THE RENEWAL OF THE NATIONAL LAND CONSOLIDATION STRATEGY

Abstract

The aim of the article is to analyse the perspectives of rural development after the updating of the national land consolidation strategy in Lithuania based on the examples of other countries. To achieve the aim of the article, theoretical and empirical research methods were used: the methods of scientific, journalistic and public literature analysis, as well as the analysis of legal acts in order to clarify the principles of implementation of land consolidation projects in the analysed countries, and the method of comparative analysis was applied. North Macedonia was chosen for comparison with Lithuania, as it has become a flagship country in the region since 2014 and now has a fully operational national land consolidation programme. The study assesses the importance of assessing priority areas for land consolidation projects and suggests that this type of assessment based on criteria should be included in the Lithuanian National Land Consolidation Strategy as a supporting tool for the selection of project areas. The author proposes that the assessment in Lithuania should be carried out at the level of cadastral areas, based on the practice in N. Macedonia, where a multi-criteria assessment was carried out in 2017 across the country to identify the most appropriate land consolidation areas in N. Macedonia, and provides a reasoned set of criteria for carrying out this type of assessment in Lithuania.