Participation in rural development

One of the interesting programmes under the Rural Development Programme is titled "Leader". The programme allows the public and private sectors to set up local action groups in order to implement initiatives aimed to increase the valorisation of the rural areas. The National Rural Development Agency was the first group set up in Malta in August 2007. The group managed to enrol all eligible local councils (except Żejtun) from the 45 local councils that are considered as rural areas. The agency has also enrolled a number of private entities as required by the Leader regulations. The NRDA was officially launched in May 2008. In September 2008 it held its first assembly and the management committee was elected from among the members.

We wish to thank the Forum Malta fl-Ewropa for their support in the membership/information campaign carried out in 2007 and 2008. Since then, two other local groups have been set up - one called Xlokk and the other Majjistral. The NRDA has either received resignations from local councils or they just applied to be members in these two new groups without even informing the NRDA that they were switching membership into a new group.

The Rural Development Plan 2007- 2013 for Malta envisages the setting up of one local action group for Gozo and one or two for Malta.

The EU Commission leaves it up to the national governments on the number of local action groups to be approved through a competitive process.

The LAG is approved following a public call where the said LAG must submit its rural development plan and business plan covering its geographical area.

During 2008, the NRDA has participated in trans-national projects with Italian, Sardinian, Sicilian and Cypriot partners. These projects encouraged tourism into the rural areas in order to increase the income and business potential of these areas. The experience gained is very valid for local entrepreneurs and also augurs well for future projects that might be possible in the future. In one particular project that created the brand "Ruralità Mediterranea", the NRDA could not fully participate because it had no funds to meet the deliverables of the project.

The NRDA has organised more than four events during 2008 for which various government ministers have been invited. We regret the fact that none of these invitations was accepted. At one of our events we had Stefan Buontempo in attendance and he also made a speech to those present during an event held in Attard regarding the TRIM project. The NRDA has been actively campaigning for the launching of the Leader programme for the past months and has also participated in public meetings that discussed the programme.

The NRDA is awaiting wholeheartedly the arrival of the Leader programme. Our participation depends on how many local councils remain loyal to the organisation since any local action group needs to have eight local councils as members. It would be a great pity if the work done so far, and the experience gained from these two years, were to evaporate for reasons beyond our control.