European Conference ‘Unlocking the Potential of the RDPs’

The ENRD Contact Point and DG AGRI jointly organised a conference on ‘Unlocking the Potential of the Rural Development Programmes (RDPs)’ on 1 February 2016 in Brussels, Belgium.

The event brought together all the national and regional Managing Authorities responsible for designing and implementing the RDPs and National Rural Networks’ (NRNs) representatives.

The main aims of the conference were to share experiences and to arrive at answers to the following questions:

1. What worked best in targeting rural development operations towards identified needs? How far are identified needs reflected in focus areas and the performance framework?
2. What were the main bottlenecks in programme design and programme presentation? What is the scope for simplification?
3. What is the scope for further unlocking unused potential and what needs to be done to achieve this?
4. How can we improve the development and sharing of good practice on programming and reporting on results (role of networks, guidance documents, etc.)?