1. ESF Committee plenary meeting in Rome
Community-led local development
Jolanta Świątkowska
European Commission, Regional Policy
17 October 2014

2. Structure of the presentation
What is Community-led Local Development (CLLD)?
What is the value added of CLLD ?
How to programme CLLD in ?
What are the results under the CLLD approach achieved so far?

3. Regulation (EU) No. 1303/2013 (Common Provisions Regulation: CPR)
…. to better mobilise potential at local level, it is necessary to strengthen and facilitate community-led local development by laying down common rules and close coordination for all relevant European Structural and Investment Funds; Recital (31);
Member States shall promote, in accordance with their institutional and legal framework and with Article 32 the development of local and sub-regional approaches; Annex 1 (Common Strategic Framework)

4. CLLD – the enhanced LEADER Acquis
Significant experience to build mainly on: LEADER (EAFRD), Axis 4 (EFF), Urban Community Initiative (ERDF)and EQUAL (ESF).
Focused on specific sub-regional territories, which can be urban, rural, fisheries dependent and cross-border areas (Art.32.2a CPR)
Bottom-up approach: implemented by local communities through public-private partnerships (Art.32.2b CPR)
Carried out through integrated and multi-sectoral local development strategies (Art.32.2c CPR).

5. Local development strategies (Art. 33CPR)
- Contribution to programme objectives
- Flexible responses to local needs identified through SWOT analysis
- Bottom-up process

6. CLLD local action groups (LAGs)
Area population: – inhabitants (exceptions need to be justified).
LAG should draw-up project selection criteria, assess and select operations for financing.
Decision making level: neither the public sector nor any single interest group shall represent more than 49% of the voting rights.

7. CLLD value added (1)
More coherence and synergies between the interventions financed through European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) on local level
Article 32(3) CPR:
Support from the ESIF concerned shall be consistent and coordinated between the ESIF concerned.
This shall be ensured inter alia through coordinated capacity-building, selection, approval and funding of strategies and LAG-s.

8. CLLD value added (2)
Promoting community ownership of the EU 2020 Strategy, finding local solutions to local problems
CLLD shall be led by local action groups composed of representatives of public and private local socio-economic interests (Art. 32(2b) CPR)
The CLLD strategy shall contain the description of community involvement in the development of the strategy (Art. 33(1d) CPR)

9. CLLD value added (3) Capacity building at local level
So called "preparatory support" is available under CLLD (for building partnerships and designing strategies, Art. 35(1a CPR)
It may cover the following costs:
Training for local stakeholders
Studies of the area concerned
Costs linked to the preparation of a strategy including consultancy costs
Administrative costs of an organisation that is applying for preparatory support.

10. CLLD programming
CLLD obligatory for European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (5% of allocation/MS)
Optional for ESF, ERDF and EMFF (European Maritime and Fisheries Fund)
Estimated allocation: EMFF: 10% (560 M€), ESF: 0,81%(606 M€), ERDF: 0,9% (1,380 billion €)
Activities under all thematic objectives can be financed.

11. CLLD and ERDF, examples of areas where to intervene
Deprived city neighbourhoods, industrial districts, brownfield sites, suburbs, etc.
Smaller cities, market towns and their surrounding rural areas.
Thematic approaches linked to urban challenges, such as: unemployment, social exclusion, etc.
Target group approaches focusing on young people, women, migrants…,

12. CLLD-approach, results achieved
2,402 Local Action Groups set-up under LEADER: , , and implementation periods;
For example, in Valencia (Spain) under period: 1012 jobs created by 8 LAGs and in the Northern Ireland: around 1,500 jobs created by 11 LAGs;
312 Fisheries Local Action Groups set-up under European Fisheries Fund in the period with estimated 8,000 jobs created and 220 SMEs and micro-enterprises.

13. Thank you for your attention !
Guidance on Community-led Local development in European Structural and Investment Funds
Guidance on Community-Led Local development for Local Actors ( in all Member States' languages)