The EU must not neglect rural areas and policymakers must put Community Led Local Development (CLLD) at the heart of the continent’s long-term rural development policy.
That’s the message coming from Local Development Companies and supporters of LEADER countrywide as the deadline looms to sign a petition (which takes 1 minute) demanding that CLLD be made central to Europe’s long term rural development policy.
You can sign the petition here: https://elard.eu/petition_en/
Shauna McClenaghan, joint CEO with Inishowen Development Partnership, urged people to sign up.
“At a time when rural areas face increasing challenges, the EU needs to redouble its efforts to empower rural communities by enabling them to design and implement solutions tailored to local needs, as Local Development Companies like Inishowen Development Partnership have done for the last 30 years,” she wrote in a post on Linkedin.
The petition, which was shared by the European LEADER Association for Rural Development, said that rural areas are facing numerous problems right now:
“Rural areas across the European Union face growing challenges: an ageing population, youth outmigration, economic stagnation, limited access to services, and increasing pressures from geopolitical shifts. These regions are also at the forefront of critical EU priorities, including food security, climate adaptation, and territorial cohesion. For Europe to thrive, its rural areas must remain vibrant, resilient, and well-connected.”
It claimed that LEADER and CLLD have the answers to many of the problems.
“For over 30 years, LEADER and community-led local development (CLLD) have demonstrated that bottom-up, participatory approaches can successfully address rural challenges. Through Local Action Groups (LAGs), these tools mobilise local knowledge, build social capital, and implement innovative solutions tailored to each community’s specific needs,” it said.
The petition makes five demands of the European Commission:
1 Make participatory rural development tools mandatory across all EU member states in the next multiannual financial framework (MFF), ensuring that LEADER/CLLD remains a core pillar of EU territorial policies.
2 Integrate LEADER/CLLD into multiple EU policies and protect its budgetary allocation with earmarking, including the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and Cohesion Policy, recognising that rural development extends beyond agriculture.
3 Strengthen and recognise the role of Local Action Groups (LAGs) as key facilitators of EU policies at the local level, and as key stakeholders in preventing and fighting disinformation.
4 Simplify access to funding by reducing administrative burdens and ensuring multi-fund mechanisms support efficient, community-led initiatives
5 Increase funding for LEADER-CLLD, at a level that matches its proven impact and expanded role in tackling rural challenges.
You can read the full petition wording here and as pointed out signing it takes merely a minute.
What is Community-led local development (CLLD)?
“CLLD is a tool for involving citizens at local level in developing responses to the social, environmental and economic challenges we face today. CLLD is an approach that requires time and effort, but for relatively small financial investments, it can have a marked impact on people’s lives and generate new ideas and the shared commitment for putting these into practice.”
