Transnational cooperation links continents through LEADER

Transnational cooperation (TNC) funding is available through LEADER to help local communities learn from each other’s development experiences and inspire each other to achieve more. TNC funds have been a longstanding and integral feature of LEADER’s community-led local development (CLLD) methodology since the 1990s during which time LAGs and Managing Authorities have accumulated a vast amount of TNC knowledge and understanding.

Intercontinental TNC

Many innovative uses of TNC support for LEADER/CLLD have evolved in Member States and can include macro-scale geo-cooperation actions, such as those stretching across European seas. Three continents connect in the Mediterranean, which provides for wide-ranging geo-possibilities using TNC.

A novel example is the TNC project ‘Cluster MED et pays-tiers’ (MED Cluster with third countries), which is networking CLLD experience and ideas throughout countries from the Mediterranean basin. It currently includes 12 LAGs and is promoted by the LEADER component of France’s National Network within the Managing Authority. The use of CLLD by the partners is considered particularly innovative because the methodology can be used to implement strategic tactical policies in practical and pragmatic ways that meet local needs while reinforcing community resilience.

European and African partners already signed up for the TNC project include regional and local municipalities, agro-economic specialists, National CAP Networks, civil society groups and nature bodies. Together their united actions will create and expand enabling factors that facilitate new possibilities for cooperation proposed by local communities. Technical expertise in CLLD animation, multi-sectoral project support specialisms, bespoke solutions and the trust of local actors in TNC are forecast as important success factors for partners in the Cluster MED et pays-tiers project.

Peer learning

The Cluster MED project's intended impact is tangible benefits from practical actions in local communities. Problem-solving techniques sit at the heart of the TNC project. Its activities rely on partners who use new opportunities for exchanges with their peers via the LEADER method in Mediterranean countries. LEADER funding through the CAP will allow partners to identify common issues that can be worked on collectively at the rural community level through TNC.

CLLD expertise is welcome from islands and coastal areas to support the TNC project’s ambitions. Development themes such as sustainable food systems, eco-tourism, marine environment, waste and energy, demography, education and culture are among the variety of local project impacts possible within the overall mandate of this LEADER-led cooperation.

Knowledge networking

A knowledge library will be built to analyse and compare different TNC practices inside and outside the Mediterranean basin countries. It will draw on achievements from important starting points for peer learning for CLLD practitioners that took place between the Kerkennah islands in Tunisia and French LAGs. Projects like DEVLOK and TERRICOOP from the previous programming period showed what CLLD approaches can deliver using the 2023-2027 LAG funds.

New studies by the Cluster MED project will thus build on such experience and be applied as networking tools to raise awareness about valuable new TNC insights. The study findings are intended to motivate fruitful future TNC endeavours for Mediterranean communities, and a dedicated handbook is in the pipeline about animating LEADER Local Development Strategies for the Mediterranean using TNC.

Handbook content is being planned as a CLLD TNC training manual for Mediterranean countries and Member States that wish to cooperate. It intends to elaborate advisory recommendations for TNC between the EU and external countries. These tips and techniques will be promoted through international conferences while the project’s study also offers transferable learning opportunities for other far-reaching TNC macro-models.

Find out more about this novel macro-regional TNC initiative from the LEADER staff at France’s National CAP Network.