National Networks news

National Networks (NNs) in Portugal, Romania and France became fully operational recently and, as with the other Member State NNs, their services are supporting a range of capacity building and awareness raising activities for CAP Strategic Plans (CSPs) across rural Europe.

Sharing good practice approaches to CSP implementation continues to be strengthened by the NNs through cluster-based approaches. NNs continually improve and evolve this CSP networking technique via their groupings of both geographic and thematic NN clusters.

In the regional NN clusters, members have been discussing the new Common Network Statistics and swapping updates on national thematic activities. For instance , the NN thematic cluster on monitoring and evaluation is learning from each other about differences and complementarity between national approaches.

NN members of the thematic cluster supporting efforts to implement the EU’s Long-term Vision for Rural Areas (LTVRA) have recently been exchanging on different national approaches, while the Finnish Network created a dedicated webpage to increase awareness about LTVRA topics. The online cluster meeting also discussed useful developments with other EU funds that are vital for enabling the LTVRA’s success. Considerable potential exists for more complementarity on this that can be progressed as part of the NNs increasing need to coordinate with Rural Pact support services.

Rural youth remain an important resource for achieving LTVRA goals in all Member States and so involvement of our NN cluster focused on youth helps provide additional complementarity for the LTVRA. Representatives in the youth cluster have been exchanging on opportunities for CSP support for Smart Villages and youth involvement. A recent input to the cluster from Estonia showed the other Member States how they can cooperate with the EU’s Erasmus+ and Solidarity Fund. Future topics for the cluster will include further building of NN capacity in appreciation of youth employment tools such as ‘youth coaching’.

You can see more information about the NNs and their contact details on our website’s dedicated NN section.