News | 13 Sep 2024

LEADER impact report on balanced territorial development

A recently published European Commission evaluation exploring LEADER impacts on balanced territorial development shows LAGs created nearly 60 000 jobs and much more during the previous funding period.

A rural community showing traditional buildings and countryside in Spain

LEADER’s effect on local rural development from 2014-2022 is assessed in the recently published European Commission’s evaluation of the impact of LEADER on Balanced Territorial Development. 

July saw the publication of the European Commission’s Evaluation on the impact of LEADER on Balanced Territorial Development. This study took place when close to 2 900 LAGs covered most of rural Europe during LEADER’s 2014-2022 funding period. The findings recognise that LEADER is ‘bringing the EU closer to citizens’, and the bottom-up approach ensures that their strategies and projects meet priority local needs. 

LEADER is shown to have targeted areas which are economically disadvantaged, peripheral or remote, creating close to 60 000 jobs during the previous funding period and playing an important role in territorial development for rural areas. LAGs succeeded in promoting local development, particularly supporting local economies and businesses (25% of beneficiaries were SMEs), providing means for local services for improved quality of life, and contributing to social capital enhancement and addressing social issues.

External perceptions

Some findings from the evaluation team warrant further consideration. For example, on average in the EU, public support per LAG was EUR 4 million over the programming period of nine years. This illustrates the relatively limited scale of LEADER as a funding instrument and its local nature.  

LEADER is seen here primarily as a method to improve and mobilise local resources and capacity, increasing participation, and improving governance and social capital, rather than an instrument to support significant capital investments or other large projects in rural areas. LEADER funding represented only 2% of spending provided through the CAP, and LAGs covered 170 million rural citizens.  

In this regard, the evaluators consider that LEADER’s specific costs have produced additional benefits, including some intangible benefits. However, capturing the intangible benefits of the LEADER method remains a challenge. This limitation is perceived as relevant when comparing LEADER with other similar measures or instruments to promote rural development.  

Administrative burdens were reviewed, and the report confirms that these are vital to support the core CAP reporting systems. Extra dedicated LEADER systems would create even more complexity overall for the CAP and considerable achievements could be gained by continuously building the administrative capacity of LEADER stakeholders. Results would help stakeholders better use the CAP’s existing administrative systems with more competence and confidence. This can be balanced with parallel endeavours to simplify administration systems for everyone involved. The objective remains to first protect public expenditure robustly, while adequately facilitating LAG development functions. 

Further scope for improvements included by the report authors points out that not all LEADER features were equally implemented in all Member States. Innovation and cooperation were considered the most challenging, and the report states that these should be further improved. Inter-territorial and transnational cooperation (TNC) also appeared to be difficult to implement, mainly due to differing project selection criteria (including cooperation topics), which made it more complex for LAGs to find other partners to work with. TNC faced an additional limitation of a language barrier.

More evidence-based awareness about TNC’s concrete merits could help prioritise approvals for TNC funds.

LEADER’s niche

Niche properties of the LEADER methodology are acknowledged for helping to improve projects and attract new beneficiaries who would not otherwise have applied for projects. Animation support for LEADER activity (like TNC and networking with local actors and beneficiaries) was highlighted for fostering innovative approaches and creating durable links among economic sectors or local actors even beyond the completion of projects. 

LEADER also proved to be coherent and working in synergy with other EU funds and policies, especially those focused on socio-economic issues. The multi-fund approach during 2014-2022 provided a good opportunity to ensure LEADER’s coherence, raise additional funds, access new networks and know-how, as well as helping LAGs to use the most suitable instrument for each type of activity. 

A ‘Lessons learned’ section in the report draws the reader’s attention to the benefits of better monitoring and evaluation. It helps all stakeholders better understand LEADER added value, and the EU CAP Network is helping Member States advance on this.

Many more useful and interesting findings are available in the Executive summary and full document for this Evaluation of the impact of LEADER towards the CAP general objective of Balanced Territorial Development.  

Discover more about these types of CSP evaluation tools and dive into methods, processes and good practices on the EU CAP Network Evaluation Learning Portal.