Adrian Neal Contact Point of the European Network for Rural Development Irish NRN Meeting, 1 st December 2009, Dublin, Ireland

1. EAFRD- European framework for cooperation 2. What is cooperation? 3. Why cooperate? 4. What is a good cooperation project? 5. Cooperation and networking 6. EN RD CP and its tools to support Cooperation 2

3 Axis 1 Axis 2 Axis 3 Axis 4

 Funded under Axis 4 (Leader) of the EAFRD through national or regional rural development programmes from > Part of implementation of local development strategies by local action groups (LAGs)  Transnational cooperation is promoted by the European Commission, but not mandatory > All rural development programmes have foreseen a budget for cooperation within the Leader-axis  Was also part of Leader II and Leader+ initiatives 4

TOTAL (expected) NUMBER OF LAGs  LAGs already selected: 2,003  Expected LAGs to be selected: 2,432 LAGs selection process: state of play  18 / 27 Member States have completed selection process  7 Member States will close the selection process by end 2009  RO and BG will complete the selection process by end 2010 & 2011, respectively 5

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 €265 million = 4.8% of the EAFRD budget for Axis 4 (Leader), Inter-territorial and transnational cooperation  Italy (45,7 million), Spain (33,8 million) and Germany (30,2 million) are the Member States with the highest amounts for cooperation 8

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2. What is cooperation? 11

1. Inter-territorial cooperation - cooperation between different rural areas within a Member State:  Requires at least one LAG selected under the Leader axis  Open to other local groups using a similar participatory approach 2. Transnational cooperation - cooperation between different rural areas from at least two Member States:  Requires at least one LAG selected under the Leader axis  Additional partners may include other local groups using similar participatory approaches  Also possible to extend cooperation to groups in third countries following a similar approach 12

The partner from a third country could be:  Public-private partnership  Local group active in rural development having the capacity to prepare a local development strategy  An open partnership in which wider participation of local actors is encouraged (i.e. from various socio-economic sectors, including associations) 13

Ireland: USA, Canada Italy:Switzerland, Azerbaijan, Lebanon, Canada, Georgia, Syria, Turkey Spain:Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala Portugal: Angola, Argentina, Brazil, Cape Verde, Morocco, Uruguay France: Morocco, Tunisia Austria, Germany, Greece: Switzerland United Kingdom: FYROM, Russia 14

3. Why cooperate? A luxury or a necessity? 15

 Strengthening territorial strategies & local partnerships: Can help to better meet changing needs and challenges in cooperating areas  Reaching critical mass: Pooling resources and expertise, the total benefits are much greater than the sum of individual achievements  Improving competitiveness: Finding new business partners & positioning on new markets help promote local products & area of origin 16

 Promoting innovation through new skills & approaches: Adopting new & improved operational approaches can generate knock-on socio-economic and / or environmental benefits  Developing territorial identity and raising awareness: Helping local people discover their area and history (thereby becoming true ‘ambassadors’ of their areas) 17

 Following a territorial approach, thereby ensuring local relevance and added value  Having a strong and clearly defined project idea that will directly contribute to realising local development strategic objectives  Going beyond simple information exchanges, to include common actions which create tangible results  Planning properly for human resources  Building a strong partnership that will endure beyond the project life 18

 Taking the time to establish relations between actors  Step-by-step approach  Build on common issues/challenges  Early involvement of local decision- makers 19

1. Getting ready to start  Give local stakeholders a reason to get interested/involved in cooperation  Consider creating a local ‘cooperation think tank’ to identify cooperation ideas 2. Preparing a cooperation project  Finding trans-national partner(s)  Meeting your partner(s) and agreeing to cooperate  Preparing a trans-national cooperation application for funding  Preparing a project monitoring framework  Negotiating the financial aspects  Bringing together the required resources (knowledge and technical); and  Getting the financial, legal and administrative structures right 20

3. Implementing the project Ensure:  Cooperation partnership organised (action plan accepted)  Partnership formalised (validated/shared common goals)  Cooperation partnership animated (guide and move project forward) 4. Evaluation and valorisation  Monitoring (agree and use target indicators) and evaluation  Dissemination of results of the cooperation project (so that others can benefit from the experiences) 21

Effective networking can help in: Finding suitable partners Preventing groups from needing to reinvent the wheel Distributing ideas, innovations and information Making issues and challenges transparent and building connections Cooperation & Networking

Article 67 of Regulation 1698/2005 establishes a European Network for Rural Development  To collect, analyse & disseminate information on RD measures/programs  To consolidate good rural development practice  To provide information on developments in rural areas  To support rural expert networks (notably for evaluation);  To support national rural networks  To support trans-national co-operation initiatives 23

Coordination Committee & Leader Sub-Committee Thematic Working Groups Rural stakeholders including LAGS National Rural Networks Managing Authorities DG Agriculture

Thematic Networks Events & workshops Information services Capacity building Publications Newsletter & newsreel Information services Communication tools Coordination Committee Leader Sub-Committee Thematic Groups

27 Results revealed differences in MS’s in:  Timing of decision-making, administrative approaches and solutions.  Format and detail of project applications  Financial support provided for the preparation of TNC projects  Level of technical support provided for the preparation of TNC projects Developing an integrated European Guide to Cooperation – recent survey:

Currently only examples from previous programming period: Leader+ database of transnational cooperation projects Leader+ database of Best Practice Publications of the Leader+ Observatory (Magazine and ‘Best practice’ publications: Copies of the publications can be ordered for free via 28

 ENRD:  DG AGRI – Rural Development:  Summaries of legislation – Rural Development:  European Evaluation Network for Rural Development: _en.htm 29