How can the building of beautiful villages make up for its cultural shortcomings?

Building beautiful villages is the eager expectation of the broad masses of farmers and an inherent part of the new socialist countryside construction. However, judging from the specific work carried out in various places, the focus is generally placed on comprehensive improvement of the rural environment, garbage and sewage treatment, and other aspects, while there are many "shortcomings" in improving rural public cultural services.

First, the total amount of fiscal investment in rural cultural undertakings is insufficient. In recent years, judging from the expenditure structure of various places, although spending on cultural, sports and media undertakings has grown substantially, investment in rural cultural undertakings remains insufficient both in total amount and in internal structure. In terms of expenditure content, the proportion of personnel expenditure in cultural investment is too high, and public welfare cultural institutions at the grassroots level generally only have their wages guaranteed, with no daily public funds or activity funds, which restricts the development of grassroots cultural undertakings.

Second, social investment in the construction of the rural public cultural system is relatively small. In essence, the rural public cultural system belongs to the category of quasi-public goods, and its sources of investment should be multifaceted. In recent years, although the state has issued many policies and measures to encourage social forces to participate in the development of public welfare culture and has actively guided social forces to participate, due to factors such as insufficient publicity, the space and room left for social forces in many places are still limited.

Third, the phenomenon of low utilization rates of grassroots cultural infrastructure resources is widespread. In recent years, in order to advance the construction of the rural public cultural service system, governments at all levels have allocated large amounts of funds to implement cultural benefit projects such as the village-to-village rural radio and television project, rural film screenings, the sharing of cultural information resources, and rural reading rooms, which have played a positive role in promoting grassroots cultural construction. At the same time, however, there are also problems such as "emphasizing construction over management" and low resource utilization rates.

Fourth, there are blank spots in the performance tracking system for public cultural funds. At present, the evaluation mechanism for rural and community cultural construction is not sound enough, and the current evaluation standards are still the "old criteria" from more than a decade ago: how many square meters of building area, the number of books in the collection, whether the rules and regulations are sound, and so on. Performance indicators such as whether cultural facilities suit the "tastes" of the farmer masses and the utilization rates of cultural facilities are rarely involved. Because the reform of the rural cultural system and the establishment of a performance evaluation mechanism for public cultural funds have lagged, there is a lack of effective supervision over the use of funds and their utilization efficiency, the operating and management costs of public cultural funds are relatively high, and work efficiency is relatively low.

If the construction of the rural public cultural system is to develop rapidly and healthily, all localities still need to attach greater importance to it, continuously increase investment, and steadily advance it with multiple measures.

First, optimize the structure of fiscal expenditure and support the construction of the rural public cultural service system. It is necessary to strictly implement the requirement that the growth rate of fiscal investment in culture is not lower than the growth rate of recurrent fiscal revenue at the same level, and improve the funding guarantee mechanism for the public cultural service system. For key public cultural infrastructure and rural and community cultural construction, guarantees should be provided through special fiscal funds or allocations to form a stable funding guarantee mechanism.

Second, give play to the guiding role of fiscal funds and enhance the vitality of grassroots cultural development. It is necessary to further implement and improve economic policies that promote cultural development, make full use of economic levers such as fiscal and tax measures, guide more social funds toward rural areas, and support rural public cultural construction. For grassroots cultural units with a certain operational capacity, the proportion of "incentive" funding should be gradually increased, and incentive mechanisms should be established and improved to mobilize their enthusiasm for going to the grassroots and to rural areas. In view of the characteristics of square activities, such as their openness, high degree of freedom of participation, and popularity among the broad masses, consideration should be given, in rural areas where economic conditions permit, to rationally planning and building facilities such as rural cultural squares through appropriate compensation from fiscal departments and multi-channel fundraising by villagers.

Third, adhere to the working approach of "placing equal emphasis on construction and management" and effectively improve the utilization rate of grassroots cultural facilities. Existing cultural facilities should be staffed with full-time or part-time personnel for management to ensure their daily use. Areas with the capacity to do so should also proceed from actual conditions, combine with local excellent traditional culture and rural tourism, and fully bring out the value of grassroots cultural facilities.

Fourth, innovate incentive mechanisms and strengthen the performance evaluation of invested funds. Supporting consideration should be given to increasing investment in "cultural talent" so as to achieve coordinated development of "talent" cultivation and grassroots cultural facility construction. Relevant departments should also work hard on innovating mechanisms, actively introduce a fund performance evaluation system, stimulate the enthusiasm and initiative of more outstanding talent to participate in the construction of the rural public cultural system, and enable limited fiscal funds to produce greater benefits.