Mountain and rural economies under pressure: Identifying global and national challenges for sustainable economic development in mountain and rural areas in Switzerland

Input paper for the Swiss strategy for development of mountain regions and rural areas. It identifies the main challenges for mountain and rural regions from a European perspective. It complements these insights with an analysis of particular challenges for mountain and rural regions in Switzer-land. The paper proposes the following six overarching challenges: 1) Global competition, innovation pressures and structural changes in the economy of mountain and rural areas; 2) Increasing social and cultural heterogeneity; 3) Sustainability of physical and social infrastructure investments; 4) Changing framework conditions for the exploitation of environmental goods and serves and the impacts of climate change; 5) Increasing physical and functional interdependence of rural and urban areas; 6) Increasing institutional complexity for coordinating sectoral policies