Leader: The new approach to rural funding

Since its inception in 1991, the European Community initiative Leader became widely recognised as having been a successful and innovative pilot instrument to mobilise local actors in a bottom-up, territorial and integrated approach to pursue local development in rural areas.

In the current programming period, Leader + is one of four Community initiatives financed by EU structural funds and is designed to help rural actors consider the long-term potential of their local region. Encouraging the implementation of high-quality and original strategies for sustainable development, it has a strong focus on partnership and networks of exchange of experience.

Leader is now in its third generation. Leader I marked the beginning of a new approach (in 1991) to rural development policy, which is territorially based, integrated and participative. Leader II (from 1994) saw the Leader I approach put to more widespread use, with an emphasis on the innovative aspects of projects. Leader +, the period 2000-2006, continues its role as a laboratory for the emergence and testing of new approaches to integrated and sustainable development that will influence, complete and/or reinforce EU rural development policy.

A distinctive feature of Leader is the implementation of integrated development programmes for local rural areas, drawn up and implemented by broad-based local partnerships, called Local Action Groups (LAGs) Leader + is structured around three actions:

Action 1: Support for integrated territorial rural development strategies of a pilot nature. In the EU a few hundred LAGs have been selected under Action 1 for this programming period.

Action 2: Support for cooperation between rural territories (inter-territorial and transnational). Many of the LAGs selected under Action 1 will also be active under Action 2, setting up cooperation projects.

Action 3: Support for (national) networking. In each member state, a national network unit supports the LAGs in implementing their strategies under Actions 1 and 2.

The priority themes for LAGs strategies under Leader + (situation at end-July 2003) laid down by the Commission are:

Making the best use of natural and cultural resources, including enhancing the value of sites; improving the quality of life in rural areas; adding value to local products, in particular by facilitating access to markets for small production units via collective actions and using new know-how and new technologies to make products and services in rural areas more competitive.

Leader in many ways epitomises the EU's approach to rural development policy as it involves: a broad policy framework, strategic aims, common rules and financing established at EU level by the member states and the European Commission; a bottom-up approach with rural stakeholders designing rural development measures, at local level, that best suit their requirements and regional and national selection and approval processes for LAGs.

In the EU, local opportunities have not yet been taken advantage of as strongly and as widely as needed. Local initiative and people's experience, the feeling that they are working for their own cause, also increase the commitment of private capital and work for regional development measures. In adopting a bottom-up down-to-earth programme may be more realistically achieved.

In some countries, women have already taken an active part in rural development without any major efforts. This is possible with activities which respond to their needs. It is crucial that women and young people (or other groups concerned) can participate in planning and decision-making instead of being the target of measures given from the top. Leader + is a tool for all. This fact, together with the bottom-up approach, encourages women and young people to start and implement projects. LAGs essentially are close to local people.

Development work based on local initiative needs strong local actors which in practice means powerful non-government organisations (NGOs). In the regions, it means mobilising local actors for development work. However, in many countries, the framework of leader functions has generated positive experiences to mobilise local actors quickly and effectively. It is also real local democracy. This method brings the European Union closer to people's everyday life in a unique way. Leader gives room for the special needs of minorities. There really are many important reasons to trust in local actors.

When local work works smoothly, it will change the relationship between NGOs and government organisations (GOs). The real power moves to the local level while the need for proper guidance by the GOs increases.

The true Leader actor, the association which is responsible for the programme and its implementation, is a partnership unit of all local associations and other actors and local authorities too. The resources need to be gathered. The implementation of the projects can be carried out by a single association, enterprise or municipality.

In Leader, the most important starting point for success is the viewpoints of all village people, not only of one professional or hobby group. The main point is to get local people, associations and enterprises together into one development association or cooperative. They are all on an equal footing. Public and private are integrated, not only counterparts. This kind of coalition will take on other tasks, too, and the connections between different partners will become stable. Step by step, the LAG is better prepared to take charge of its own area.

Leader as a community initiative is now in its third generation. In some other countries, Leader is in its second generation. It seems that where the basic ideas of Leader are implemented, the results are very good. In Malta, Leader is still a new concept but there is potential for such projects and funding opportunities will be available under rural development in the next programming period 2007-2013.

In the EU it is widely acknowledged that the now considerable Leader experience (that accumulates Leader I, Leader II and Leader +) is a success story. The Leader programme has created, throughout Europe, a range of interconnected and often highly productive nurseries/laboratories which together produce a considerable amount of novelties: new insights, new solutions, new arrangements, new networks, new models, new innovative trajectories, etc. The involvement of local actors, the mobilisation of local knowledge and the search for flexible public-private partnerships have all contributed to this success.

Equally important (albeit less visible) is that the Leader programme has also had a highly positive effect on the underlying socio-economic patterns on which the different projects are built. Cooperation, exchange of knowledge and experience (often at the community level) and learning trajectories have increased significantly. Thus, Leader has contributed to the strengthening of social capital - and to the search for new forms of synergetic partnerships.

The future of Leader in Malta is still quite difficult to predict but the potential through funding opportunities for the period 2007-2013 appears positive, despite present limitations. Under the draft EC regulation on European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) the Leader approach has been given prominence and constitutes one of the four thematic axis. The major force for the success of Leader will remain the mobilisation of goodwill by local actors to act and collaborate together with the main objective of achieving and delivering joint projects successfully. Given the will, the opportunities to synergise efforts should prove fruitful.

Dr Agius is Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture and Fisheries.