Following positive feedback from participants in LDnet's 2020 series of webinars, we are launching a new series of four webinars in April 2021 on “The Contribution of Community-based Initiatives to the Covid Recovery”‘ with a focus on community-based initiatives for sustainable development. All webinars will be streamed via Zoom. Registration will open in early March. The webinars, will follow the same format as last year: through short … Continue Reading
10 years of LDnet: priorities and initiatives in 2021
LDnet was launched in Brussels on 2 February 2011 to bring together people and knowledge in local development. While remaining an informal network, it has become a unique forum covering the theory and practice of bottom-up local development in both rural and urban areas, thanks to its active members and friends, its close working relationship with other organisations, and the support of the LEDA-Partenariat Association (LDnet) Association. The … Continue Reading
Events & activities
ELARD general assembly: Cohesion Policy in Rural Areas and the role of CLLD
The ELARD General Assembly was held online on 3 February 2021 and included an introductory presentation by Iwona Lizstwan, EC DG AGRI. Stefan Kah was an invited speaker. His presentation "Cohesion Policy in Rural Areas and the role of CLLD" illustrated the main messages of a 2020 study on Cohesion Policy … Continue Reading
Call for Applications by 15 March 2021 for the ‘Underground4value’ Training School – Murcia, 24-28 May 2021
The COST Action CA18110 – Underground Built Heritage as catalyser for Community Valorisation is issuing a Call for Applications for its second Training School, managed by the University of Murcia, which will be held in Murcia from May 24 to 28, 2021. The school will offer training in new skills for … Continue Reading
Call for innovation and research projects supporting capacity building for urban transformations
The ERA-NET Cofund Urban Transformation Capacities (ENUTC) has published on 29 January 2021 a call welcoming a broad range of research and innovation projects that enable capacity building for urban transformations. The call applies a two-step application process, in which the first step involves the … Continue Reading
Global e-Festival: Regions in Recovery – Building Sustainable Futures – Call for abstracts
This multi-partner event will run globally, online from 2 to 18 June 2021. It will bring together a number of global communities representing planners, finance and economic geographers, economists, infrastructure specialists, regional policy experts and researchers. The Festival will address themes related to … Continue Reading
Territorial approaches – The potential of Community-led Local Development
The Interreg Annual Event 2020 was organised on 15-16 October in a digital format. The aim of the event was to review implementation of the Interreg Programme, share practice and experience between managing authorities and celebrate 30 years of Interreg. Among the parallel workshops on 16 October there was … Continue Reading
LDnet webinars 2020: Rebuilding Local Economies after Lockdown
Between 18 June and 9 July 2020, LDnet organised - in association with RSA Europe, AEIDL and ELARD - a series of four webinars on "Rebuilding local economies after lockdown", on the following topics: Reinventing local shopping and hospitality New solidarity services Stay at home vacations - … Continue Reading
Articles
CLLD comparisons: ESI funding dedicated to CLLD in different countries
What share of ESI funding did Member States dedicate to CLLD in 2014-20 and how does this differ by Fund? This analysis is part of the CLLD in Europe initiative of LDnet, comprising CLLD country profiles and horizontal analyses (see here). CLLD continues to be dominated by the EAFRD, which contributes … Continue reading
Where does the EU share of CLLD funding come from?
The 2014-20 programme period introduced the option for Member States to support Local Action Groups (LAGs) from more than just EAFRD or EMFF, allowing to also use the Structural Funds ERDF and ESF. Yet, only 16 Member States decided to make the use of Structural Funds for CLLD possible. For more detail please … Continue reading
Social Innovation, Societal Change, and the Role of Policies
In this new paper in the journal SUSTAINABILITY the authors explore the links between social innovation and policy and the "triadic relationships" between the state, intermediary organizations, and local actors. Authors: Robert Lukesch, Alice Ludvig, Richard Slee, Gerhard Weiss, Ivana … Continue reading
“Which future do you want in rural areas?”
From May to August 2020, 3 436 people from 26 different countries answered the survey which was carried out by ELARD, the European association of LEADER groups, in cooperation with REDR, the Spanish rural development network. The aim of the survey was to find out what rural citizens and actors think of life … Continue reading
Post COVID-19 Futures; Changing Work and Re-Thinking Skills
Peter Lloyd has been among the active contributors to the series of webinars on ‘Rebuilding local economies after lockdown’. In a new paper, Peter and his co-author, Michael Blakemore, make a valuable contextual contribution to this debate focusing on work and skills. They see scope for making an … Continue reading
Local responses to the COVID-19 crisis: What’s happening, what can we learn?
Several organisations are collecting and publishing local initiatives in response to the Covid-19 crisis. We have updated our overview and are offering below the links to a number of these initiatives (see sections 1 and 2). We have also conducted a number of discussions in June/July 2020 through the … Continue reading
PUBLICATIONS
Territorial Approaches for Sustainable Development
Perspectives and approaches that put territories at the centre of development have returned to become important in international debate and policy to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Among the reasons for the renewed emphasis is the need to improve the effectiveness of sectoral … Continue reading
Building back better from COVID-19 through inclusive territorial approaches
GIZ has published this discussion paper in which the authors, Thomas Forster and Florence Egal, argue that from diverse experiences of countries and that of local and regional governments1, it is evident that the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has a number of territorial dimensions that need to be better … Continue reading
EU lagging regions: State of play and future challenges
The EU’s lagging regions face significant challenges to transform their economic under-performance. Current ongoing transitions, such as digitalisation and towards a sustainable society, and the COVID-19 pandemic are accentuating these challenges. This is both creating new and exacerbating existing internal … Continue reading
EU Cohesion Policy in non-urban areas
A new study by Stefan Kah, Neli Georgieva and Liliana Fonseca of EPRC, carried out for the REGI Committee of the European Parliament, looks at the role of EU Cohesion Policy in rural areas. The study analyses the challenges of these areas and discusses the extent and thematic orientation of rural Cohesion … Continue reading
Delivering CLLD effectively: a new guide on how to design delivery systems that strengthen the bottom-up approach
FARNET has just published its latest guide, on “Delivering CLLD effectively”. Although labelled “A guide for EMFF Managing Authorities”, in fact, it can be useful for the managing authorities of CLLD under any of the ESI Funds and it is, of course, of considerable interest to local development experts. The … Continue reading
LDnet: a community of experts building bridges between research and practice
Local development is multi-faceted with practitioners split between the urban and rural domains, while researchers come from different academic disciplines. A community of experts dealing with local development could help harvest lessons learnt and overcome silo mentality. LDnet and the European Commission … Continue reading