INFORMATIONAL SUPPORT OF THE RURAL AREAS’ DEVELOPMENT

The purpose of the article is to determine peculiarities of using modern communications and telecommunications, virtual space, assessing the availability of relevant information that reflects all aspects, processes which are taking place in the economic, social life, and ecology of rural areas. Another purpose is the development of directions for solving existing problems. Methodology. Methods for theoretical synthesis, analysis, and comparison were used in the process of determination of features and substantiation of the basic concepts. Results of the research. It was revealed that in the information provision of Ukrainian rural areas functioning has accumulated a considerable potential. There are such crucial strengths as an existence of a developed infrastructure of state statistics, hierarchically structured organizational structures (centre, region, district) that can provide information collection and processing, as well as its distribution in the opposite direction. Also, there are highly skilled IT specialists and organizational opportunities for their training and retraining. Among other points are the following: an existence of the databases, where scientific and technical information were accumulated; an existence of the databases of modern agricultural technologies; and there is also a developed research infrastructure. But today, the level of use of automation tools continues to remain extremely low in the rural management authorities in Ukraine. The long-standing experience in using information technologies by enterprises and organizations is practically not used in the management of territories. Full informational support of rural areas is possible in case of the organization of the qualitative monitoring of their development with simultaneous taking into account further forecasts for a set of most characteristic indicators for the territory in a certain period of time. A promising task is the integration of Ukraine’s information systems into the international information space. This task involves synchronizing national standards, methodologies, and tools with international standards, as well as improving communication with international scientific and information centres. Practical implications. The creation of an integrated information and communication system of rural areas will help to solve the tasks of effective territorial management. The main components of this system will be the following: the developed infrastructure for access to information; informational systems of local self-government bodies; informational monitoring systems; e-commerce and marketing systems; consulting electronic services; distance learning and retraining systems. Within the enterprises, it is necessary to use information and computer technologies for the accumulation of data about the social, economic, and ecological activity. It is advisable to supplement the monitoring information regarding the development of rural areas by subjective assessments, results of sociological surveys. An improvement of the software system “Household Accounting for Village Councils” involves the use of clientserver technology with the combined use of telecommunication and print media. A promising area for research and management of rural areas on the basis of the spatial representation of processes is the use of geographic information systems and global positioning. Value/originality. The integrated informational and communicational system of rural territories will ensure the efficiency and quality of their information support and will become the basis of effective management