It is a program of the European Union, which emerged in the early 90s of the twentieth century, countermeasures to the growing problems of the European countryside: the dangers caused by mass development of extensive agricultural production, reducing the number of farms (especially those small family), the gradual desertification of rural areas, fading traditions and values of rural communities. The growing gap between the countryside and the city gave birth to the need to support rural development by the European Union. In this way, was the LEADER initiative. Name of LEADER is the acronym of the French name of the Liaison Entre Actions de Development de l? Economie Rurale, which means the relationship between measures of rural economic development, namely the cooperation between various actors in the countryside or rural development and its inhabitants.
In 1991 started the implementation of a new method consisting of multi-faceted rural development as a place not only agricultural production but also development of other sectors of the economy, a good place to live, preserving natural and cultural riches. Novelty of this approach was also extensive involvement of local residents in the development of his? Little homeland?.
This new form of action, with financial support from the EU budget quickly brought the desired results, proved to be an effective way to deal with the rural issues.
The method of the program can be effective when used rules LEADER:
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Bottom-up approach- concepts of joint action, influencing the development of the area have come out from the same population ?local leaders?;
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People involved in creating a vision to develop the area working in partnership, including planning and implementation of the representatives of three sectors: social, economic and public, who organize the Local Action Groups;
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Integrated approach- manifests itself in combining operations, resources and development opportunities of representatives of different sectors. Activities so far begin to diffuse complement, stimulate;
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A territorial approach is to find areas consistent in terms of geographical, economic, historical, cultural, natural micro-(and not administrative units) and building their local strategies taking into account their specific;
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Innovation- experimentation, the search for new effective approaches and methods for integrated and sustainable development;
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Local financing and management- means so that the funds for the development, implementation of local strategies to get a partnership, a group of persons cooperating for the development of his ?small homeland?;
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Networking and cooperation between partnerships - joint projects, exchange of experience on a regional scale and international development and stimulates innovation and increases the impact LEADER-type approach.
Community Initiative, LEADER has been created and used as a kind of experiment but quickly found many supporters and triggered a huge potential in the European inhabitants of the village. Is now widely used in many European regions and gives visible results sustainable, integrated rural development. In the countries of the old 15 European Union operate 892 Local Action Groups in 73 programs. In nine countries are the national programs and in six - programs developed and supported by regional authorities.
