Support for balanced regional development with participatory approaches has a long tradition in EU funding programmes for rural development. LEADER started 25 years ago and now has 2600 Local Action Groups (LAGs). These LAGs collaborate as a kind of a public-private partnership on the basis of...

In the last funding periods there was steady increase in the number of LEADER-regions in Europe, and, at least in Germany, it is already evident that this gain will continue: for the 2014-2020 funding period there around 300 LAGs expected in comparison to 244 LAGs in the last period. For the new...

The challenges for the quality of life in rural areas in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, connected with structural economic and demographic changes, raise the question of how to find appropriate policy interventions in the specific situation of transitions countries. One approach to bring forward rural...

New governance structures, meant to empower local decision makers, are supported by some policies introduced by the European Commission. LEADER, from rural development policy, is among these approaches. Nevertheless, these new policies are implemented in very different multi-level governance...

Many different levels of the institutional framework influence processes of rural development. One funding-scheme for rural development is LEADER, which is a bottom-up-orientated approach funded by the EU. A key element is a Local Action Group (LAG) as a kind of a private-public partnership. The...

The Helpdesk of European Evaluation Network for Rural Development supported by a group of external experts has prepared a Working Paper on ”Capturing the impacts of Leader and measures to improve the Quality of life (QoL) in rural areas”. The working paper provides methodological support for...

The challenges for the quality of life in rural areas in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, connected with structural economic and demographic changes, raise the question of how to find appropriate policy interventions in the specific situation of transitions countries. One approach to bring forward rural...

One approach to support a smart rural development is LEADER, which is funded by the European agricultural fund. A general assumption about LEADER-approach is that the implementation of the LEADER-principles (like participation, cooperation, bottom up-orientation) creates an added value because...

The current immigration of refugees leads to a discussion about links between rural development and migration. Some rural regions in Germany formulate the hope that they can benefit from refugee immigration. In these areas, the impacts of aging and population decline with labour and skills...