Indicators for Rural Community prosperity, services and quality of life

CSA Group
Standards Development Organisation:
Canadian Standards Association (operating as CSA Group)
Working Program:
View the CSA work program
Designation Number:
CSA R113
Standard Type:
National Standard of Canada - Domestic
Standard Development Activity:
New Standard
Status:
Proceeding to development
SDO Comment Period Start Date:
SDO Comment Period End Date:
Posted On:

Scope:

The Standard will define and establish methodologies for a set of indicators to identify and measure rural community wellbeing, prosperity, and sustainability. The Standard will be applicable to any rural or small town community, municipality or local organization, as well as provincial and federal authorities that measure performance of small and rural communities in a consistent, comparable and verifiable manner. The Standard will focus on 3 broad categories with related indicators: Economic, Environmental and Social.

Project need:

Rural areas are facing many new challenges and opportunities relating to global economic trends, climate change and extreme weather events, demographic changes and population migration, etc. The impact of these challenges and opportunities cannot be assessed accurately due to the inconsistencies in the collection and dissemination of rural data. This represents a major obstacle to understanding the nature and extent of rural challenges, developing strategies to address sustainable development goals, and measuring the success of public and private initiatives. In order to comprehend and respond effectively to these challenges, rural communities need access to accurate data in a format that facilitates turning data into understanding actions. Currently rural data is not always being collected at an appropriate scale or focus, or if collected, is often not being made available in ways that are useful "on the ground" for rural municipal administration and community development (economic, social, and environmental) nor is it at the provincial and federal levels. Therefore, rural communities are frequently misinterpreting or unaware of critical challenges and are unable to effectively share evidence of effective responses.

Note: The information provided above was obtained by the Standards Council of Canada (SCC) and is provided as part of a centralized, transparent notification system for new standards development. The system allows SCC-accredited Standards Development Organizations (SDOs), and members of the public, to be informed of new work in Canadian standards development, and allows SCC-accredited SDOs to identify and resolve potential duplication of standards and effort.

Individual SDOs are responsible for the content and accuracy of the information presented here. The text is presented in the language in which it was provided to SCC.