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LEADER is one of the longest standing, most successful and popular European-wide initiatives.

This EU Rural Review explores how the seven LEADER principles are interpreted today by people who have been deeply involved with implementing LEADER in rural communities across Europe.

The articles show how the principles work in practice, how they deliver results and ensure sustained performance over time, and how they are adaptable to deal with the emerging challenges and opportunities facing rural areas.

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EU Rural Review 29 - LEADER Achievements

This issue of the EU Rural Review explores some of the latest thinking and practice in how rural entrepreneurship can be supported to take advantage of emerging opportunities and latent potential in order to develop new forms of successful rural business.

Without seeking to ignore the many challenges facing Europe’s rural areas, the issue overviews new opportunities emerging from sectors ranging from the biotechnology to the experience economy and from possibilities created by new information technologies to changing consumer demand.

Finally, it examines how the Rural Development Programmes can be deployed strategically to take advantage of these opportunities, finding smarter ways to deliver effective business support and making targeted efforts to overcome some of the specifically rural challenges.

This issue highlights the relevance of EU Rural Development policy to wider societal challenges and the practical opportunities to deliver the greatest positive impact on the ground. It focuses on responses to the challenges of limited rural broadband internet access, global climate change and the current refugee crisis. It goes on to explore some of the new and developing EU policy tools: multi-funded CLLD; the European Fund for Strategic Investments; and the RDP Cooperation Measure.

This issue examines the importance of stakeholder involvement in rural development and the methods that can be used to support it. It provides information and guidance on the main types of stakeholder groups in rural development, the EU legal basis of stakeholder involvement and ways in which it can contribute to rural development policy. The issue provides examples of good stakeholder involvement.

Innovation is at the heart of the Europe 2020 strategy, which aims to promote smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Today, European farmers are faced with the dual challenges of having not only to produce more, but also to do so in a sustainable manner. The reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) sees innovation as a key driver of sustainable agriculture and rural development.

Networking is a policy instrument within the framework of the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) – otherwise known as Pillar 2 of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Experience shows that networks are an effective means of informing, inspiring and empowering local people in rural communities.

How Rural Development Programmes (RDPs) are contributing to the promotion of local food production and short supply chains.

This issue focuses on the inter-relationship between two key elements of the LEADER approach - Local Development Strategies and cooperation.

Encouraging rural employment, tackling rural poverty and improving the quality of life.

Rural people’s dedication to the on-going development of diversity in Europe’s countryside forms the main focus of this issue of the EU Rural Review.