This year's general assembly of the LDnet association took place on Tuesday 8 October 2019 in Brussels, with teleconferencing facilities allowing members and friends not present in Brussels to participate remotely. In addition to the normal business of the general assembly, there was a wide-ranging debate covering several topics led by colleagues, including: Building bridges between research, policy and practice on local development: … Continue Reading
A lively debate on ‘Capitalising on diversity in local development’ at EWRC2019
On 9 October 2019, as part of EWRC2019, LDnet, organised a workshop in partnership with ELARD on 'Capitalising on diversity in local development' under the theme 'A Europe Closer to Citizen'. The workshop aimed at demonstrating that bottom-up approaches to local development, like CLLD, have succeeded in engaging ‘Unusual Suspects’; people left out of mainstream development strategies. The workshop discussed urban and rural case studies from … Continue Reading
Events & activities
LDnet at the European Rural Parliament, 6-9.11.2019
Four days of intense networking, disseminating and learning more about rural topics in a European context await the participants of the 4th ERP. Field trips, plenaries and workshop sessions will enable discussions and interactions among representatives of rural communities from all over Europe. Rural … Continue Reading
LEADER/CLLD 2019 Conference: 25-26.11.2019 Amarante, Portugal
ELARD are organising this year's LEADER/CLLD conference in Amarante, Portugal. Speakers include: Loris Servillo & Stefan Kah: Implementing CLLD in the EU: Experiences so far - stocktaking, analysis and recommendations Marion Eckardt: The added value of ERDF and ESF projects under CLLD Kristiina … Continue Reading
OECD Local Development Forum: 10-11.12.2019
The 2019 Local Development Forum will take place in Antwerp, Belgium, on 10-11 December 2019. The Forum will bring together local development practitioners, entrepreneurs and social innovators to share good practices about how employment and skills programmes are meeting employer demand (especially SMEs), … Continue Reading
Policy Conference: Maximising the Opportunities for Cohesion Policy in Challenging Times, 11-13.05.2020, Zagreb
Jointly organised by the European Commission, Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy, RSA Europe, and the Croatian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Third Joint EU Cohesion Policy Conference will take place 11th-13th May 2020, Zagreb, Croatia: Maximising the Opportunities … Continue Reading
Articles
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
Resilient Villages: “Vibrant rural communities are not afraid to take risks”
In his current research, LDnet board member, Alistair Adam-Hernández examines why some rural communities are able to adapt to change better than others. During the European Rural Sociology Conference 2019, “Rural Futures in a Complex World” in Trondheim (NO), an international group of social scientists … Continue reading
Debating CLLD as experimental governance and task-specific space for policy action
The Community-Led Local Development (CLLD) instrument is one of the most interesting “territorial delivery mechanisms” of the current EU 2014-2020 programming period. Built on the former LEADER project, it attempts to overcome the sectorial (rural or maritime) approach of the previous instrument through a … Continue reading
Implementing cohesion policy funds through multi-Fund CLLD
Community-led Local Development (CLLD) was introduced in the 2014-20 programme period and is based on the well-established LEADER tool. While LEADER is distinctly rural, co-funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), CLLD allows Member States to make use of up to four different ESI … Continue reading
Urban CLLD – The case of FatorC in Cascais, Portugal
CLLD Community Led Local Development (CLLD) is a territorial bottom-up approach, through which Local Development Strategies (LDS) are implemented. Local communities are encouraged to participate in the decisions about the implementation of community funds, by identifying the needs and challenges faced with … Continue reading
PUBLICATIONS
The European Parliament’s role in cohesion policy since the Lisbon Treaty
A new study highlights the crucial role of the European Parliament in supporting a comprehensive, multi-sector and multi-fund cohesion policy “for all regions” and in defending its principles, including the integrated territorial approach. It also points out the close links that Parliament enjoys with the … Continue reading
CAP Strategic Plans: Where is LEADER?
We are moving towards the adoption of the provisions regarding LEADER in the 2021-2027 period, but it is still difficult to place LEADER in the new architecture of CAP. The proposals of the European Commission regarding Community-led Local Development (CLLD) and LEADER were published in May/June 2018. The … Continue reading
Social Innovation Community Yearbook
The Social Innovation Community (SIC) project was funded under the European Commission Horizon 2020 programme over a three year period, from 2016 to 2019. During these three years, SIC ran a series of on and offline activities - including practical place-based experimentation, learning, policy and … Continue reading
Overcoming EU Discontent in ‘Places That Don’t Matter’ through Community-Led Local Development
The past year has certainly been a particularly difficult one for the strength and cohesion of the European Union. The outcomes of local and national elections in many countries unveiled not only the emergence of new populist and nationalist movements and governments all across the Union, but also a growing … Continue reading