LEADER / CLLD State of Play in Finland Workshop on Local Development Strategies: How to assure innovative and flexible implementation? Tartu 23rd Nov 2016 petri.rinne@kylatoiminta.fi The Village Action Association of Finland www.kylatoiminta.fi

54+1 LAGs operational since May 2015, covering the whole rural area of the country Hundreads of new community & business development projects launched Wider target group helps to involve more rural businesses & other new stakeholders like migrants Use of LDS selection criteria brings more transparency and comparability to the project selection 10 FLAGs operational on lake and coastal regions + several urban CLLD initiatives (e.g. Kotka, Pori, Joensuu)

Issues Electronic application system ”Hyrrä” still not fully functional  long delays in final decision making & payments Growing bureaucracy & complicated processes make LAGs civil servants? (e.g. separation of LAG animation and running costs) New types of business development projects not very usable/ well received  need to support company growth, service/product development & part-time entrepreneurs ESF / ERDF cannot support real, bottom-up project based CLLD

Solutions & learning points More customer oriented, user tested e-application systems in the future LEADER / CLLD renewal to be linked with the on-going public sector governance reforms (municipality & region)  LAGs to remain independent public-private- third sector partnerships Wider CAP target audience  better tools for business & new jobs support ESF / ERDF rules in 2020+ must enable true CLLD also on urban neighborhoods