LEADER RELOADED

 _______________________________________________________________________________________

Keynote Paper, by Robert Lukesch

...today, on September 27th, the proposals have still not crystallized into definite Regulations. There is time to raise our voice, to intervene, to argue, to come up with better proposals. Why should we just sit there and spectate at the fizzling out of a piece of policy which has brought so much value to our rural areas?

_______________________________________________________________________________________

2021 is approaching at a rapid pace – and with that the beginning of a new programme period. 
It is now time to analyse, to reflect and to become creative!

Therefore, questions that will be discussed will include the following:

What is the present state of play of CLLD, and which future policies and tendencies will affect us and how, especially in the context of the new legislative proposals by the Commission and the financial framework for post-2020? What are the strengths of multi-funded CLLD and how will local development benefit from that? How we can make it work well and simple? How can we more and better cooperate?

In this conference organised by ELARD under the 2018/19 Portuguese presidency the participants will be able to engage in a mix of discussions, analysis work and creativity, including the construction of cooperation initiatives between rural territories of the EU.

Topics to be discussed will include the new approach imposed by the smart villages concept, exchanges on how to face the demographic changes, to ensure that young people stay in or move to rural areas, and how LEADER/CLLD and LAGs can contribute to these challenges, last but not least by cooperating with each other The Portuguese LEADER groups want to discuss these topics with all the other European LEADER groups in a creative atmosphere and they also want to show their work!

But the conference will also be a moment to reflect on the experience with more than 25 years of work with the LEADER approach: When looking back to the Final Conference of the LEADER+ Community Initiative which took place on Evora in 2007, is it true that many of us in the LEADER areas happier. How did we make it work then and how did we think about our rural areas at that time? 
What happened when the LEADER approach was mainstreamed? For this, the conference will make use of the outcome of the 2007-conference “LEADER achievements:  A diversity of territorial experience”, enabling us to better understand what has happened to the LEADER method since then.

The language of the conference will be English. (Interpretation from and into Portuguese will be provided in a part of the sessions.)

For “national delegations” from ELARD members we hope to be able to provide the possibility to be hosted by a Portuguese LAG a few days before and then to travel to the conference in Evora. If you are interested in such a “travelling workshop”, please let us know as soon as possible!