The 13th OECD Rural Development Conference was held in Cavan, Ireland on 28-30 September 2022 under the theme "Building Sustainable, Resilient and Thriving Rural Places". These are the presentations from the Conference parallel session "Building Stronger Local Partners: Bringing new stakeholders and partners to the table to amplify the rural voice in policies and strategies". For more information visit https://www.oecd.org/rural/rural-development-conference/.

1. Involving new
partners with
LEADER/CLLD
Through
development at
local level

2. ELARD Network

3. LEADER / CLLD
• LEADER IS THE ONLY EU-WIDE
PARTICIPATIVE DEVELOPMENT-METHOD
AT LOCAL/REGIONAL LEVEL
• LEADER COMBINES TECHNICAL AND
SOCIAL INNOVATION WITH LOCAL
KNOWLEDGE
• LEADER PROMOTES TECHNOLOGICAL
SOLUTIONS, TOLERANCE AND TALENT

4. Integrated strategy
Top down/
Global challenges
Local Development Strategy
Local needs /possibilities

5. LEADER method
fulfill specific functions

6. Democracy and educational policy

7. Crisis and transformation management

8. Social capital and European political function

11. Why LEADER?

12. Improvement of social capital
Tangible or intangible but real:
 Network of 2,800 Local Action Groups in the EU – tens of
thousands public and private socio-economic actors in all
parts of rural Europe engaged;
 Bringing the EU closer to citizen;
 Social capital at the local level – as a factor of development:
links, norms and relations between people, willingness to
cooperate, trust --- implications for transaction costs, risk
taking and innovations;
 Important especially in hard times – joint responses –
collective learning - networking - resilience
 EU’ investment in people at the local level

13. Better Local Governance
Concretely:
 More and diverse partners participate in the decision making
and collective bargaining,
 Inclusiveness – especially at the decision making: women,
young people, and less favoured groups,
 Transparency and non dominance of single interests groups,
 Accessibility, help of LAGs to potential beneficiaries,
 Communication with the public – communicating the EU to
citizen,
 Animation and capacity building.

14. LEADER compared with non-LEADER delivery
 More than 140,000 projects completed and visible in rural Europe
so far (2014-22);
 Very diverse and to be seen in the context of the whole Local
Development Strategy in a given area;
 Some features of projects adding value:
• Innovation at the local level – inc response to digital, social and green
transition;
• Proximity and participation of beneficiaries (via animation) who would
otherwise not put a project
• Valorisation of unique territorial assets (social, cultural, geographical,
natural)
• Links between projects and cooperation of local actors
• More sustanainable or cheaper due to knowledge of local conditions
• Community benefits and reinforcing community identity
• Meet the needs not met elsewhere (sometimes basic needs)

15. How to ensure that LEADER delivers?
● Follow the method constently and as a package
● Design rules supporting the method and objectives
● Focus on specific challenges, adapt to local circumstance
● Use LEADER where it adds value
● Stay inclusive and creative
● Show that LEADER works, incl. wider impacts
● Evaluate and adjust where needed
● Transition towards more self-sustained model

16. Thank you
Marion Eckardt
President of ELARD
www.elard.eu