CC BY
4
УДК 338.264
Zlateva R. St.
Assoc. Prof. PhD
Konstantin Preslavsky University of Shumen, Republic of Bulgaria CREATING CAPACITY FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A STRATEGY FOR COMMUNITY-LED LOCAL DEVELOPMENT BY TRAINING LOCAL LEADERS AND STAKEHOLDERS
Abstract: The article sees the training of local leaders and stakeholders as an important part of the preparatory actions of the Community-Led Local Development measure of the 2014-2020 Rural Development Program. The article further outlines the contribution of the training to creating capacity for building and implementing a strategy for Community-Led Local Development. Applicable practices are presented for structuring the trainings and obtaining feedback, focusing on identifying their usefulness and meeting the needs of the trainees, ensuring the high-quality development of a strategy for local development.
Keywords: Community-led local development, local development strategy, local initiative group, local leaders, stakeholders, training.
The Rural Development Program 2014-2020 aims at mobilizing local communities, tackling the social exclusion of vulnerable groups and developing capacity for sustainable development within the rural area territory. In Bulgaria as rural areas are defined municipalities in which there is no settlement with more than 30 thousand people.
The implementation of the LEADER approach (LEADER - Links between rural economy and development activities) for community-led local development in our country begins in its fourth phase as a horizontal priority in the rural development policy for 2007-2013 within the framework of the Rural Development Program. The interest of local communities in the LEADER approach stems from the real opportunities that it creates for social inclusion, reduction in poverty and migration and development of the territories as a whole.
The support for the Community-Led Local Development covers the following elements, programmed as sub-measures in the 2014-2020 Rural Development Program:
- support for preparatory activities for building capacity, training and networking to develop and implement a community-led local development strategy;
- Implementation of operations within the community-led local development strategy;
- preparation and implementation of cooperation activities of local initiative groups;
- current costs related to the governance in the implementation of the community-led local development strategy, including operational costs, personnel costs, training costs, public relations costs, financial costs, as well as costs related to the monitoring and evaluation of the strategy;
- costs for promotion of the Community-Led Local Development strategy in order to facilitate the exchange of information between stakeholders, to achieve publicity and to assist potential beneficiaries in the development of operations and the preparation of applications [1, 2, 3].
The Community-Led Local Development can be seen as an instrument for the implementation of development policies based on three components:
- establishing local initiative groups composed of representatives of the local public, business and non-profit sector, with at least 50% of the votes in the selection decisions being made by partners outside the public sector, with none of the interest groups to have more than 49% of the votes;
- developing strategies for local development on a model and consistent with the relevant programs of the European and Structural Funds to which they are applicable and from which they receive support;
- implementation on a level of municipality or on a union of neighboring municipalities and / or neighboring settlements - part of municipality (s), under the following conditions: the territory which benefits from assistance is of uninterrupted boundaries, has a population of between 10 000 and 150 000 inhabitants according to data from the National Statistical Institute as of 31 December 2014 and the territory to which support is provided mandatory includes a rural area [2, 5].
The methodology of Community-Led Local Development aims at facilitating its application as a tool for implementing development policies such as:
- creates capacity, stimulates entrepreneurship and the development of technology and the potential of the territories in the widest sense;
- encourages local communities to address specific challenges in their territories;
- provokes engagement leading to the increasing effectiveness of the EU policies;
- contributes to multi-level governance by providing a way for adequate participation in the implementation of the development policies in all areas [4].
The training of local leaders and stakeholders is part of the preparatory activities of the Community-Led Local Development measure of the 2014-2020 Rural Development Program. The training contributes to:
- setting up local rural initiative groups;
- acquiring skills for the functioning of such groups at local level;
- preparation of local development strategies;
- involvement of local people in the development and future implementation of local development strategies;
- informing the local population of funding of strategies as per more than one fund;
- promoting local identity.
The training of the teams of local initiative groups in rural areas, including representatives of the partners and local leaders, focuses primarily on building
their capacity to develop and implement local development strategies. As part of the preparatory actions of the Community-Led Local Development measure, the following trainings will be implemented:
- training of the team of the local initiative group, including representatives of the partners, for at least 10 participants;
- training of local leaders, for at least 20 participants.
During the trainings goal are set related to:
- familiarizing the members of the local initiative group with measure „Community-Led Local Development" and the 2014-2020 Rural Development Program;
- presentation of the possibilities for inclusion of measures under the 20142020 Rural Development Program, Operational Program „Innovation and Competitiveness" 2014-2020, Operational Program „Human Resources Development" 2014-2020, The 2014-2020 Operational Program „Environment", the Operational Program „Science and Education for Smart Growth" and the Maritime and Fisheries Program 2014-2020 in the Strategy for Community-Led Local Development;
- presentation of good applicable practices in the implemention of the Community-Led Local Development approach as well as of the ways for producing an opinion poll for collecting information on the settlements in the municipalities which is necessary for the proper structuring and writing of the Community-Led Local Development Strategy.
For the achieval of the objectives, training modules are developed and programs for each day of the planned training should be made. When structuring the trainings and preparing appropriate training materials, an individual approach should be applied and the varierty of the participants should be taken into account as well as their different engagement within the local initiative group.
During the implementation of the activity, the training materials are distributed to the participants in advance, followed by a presentation on the respective subject. It is important that each of the participants has the opportunity to express their views on the Community-Led Local Development Strategy, that a Q & A session is ensured and that common issues raised by the participants are discussed and questions are answered.
Running a poll at the end of each training can be considered as a „good practice". Participants are given a questionnaire which they fill in after the presentation of the decided topics. Based on their data, an assessment of each training is made. The methodology which determines the value of the indicator „degree of overall satisfaction of the participants in the training" is easy to apply and especially appropriate. It is determined by establishing the satisfaction of the following indicators while assessment with six-point grading system with weak (2) and excellent (6) is foreseen for:
> hall and equipment;
> available printed information materials;
> information presented during presentations;
> „Q &A" session;
> opportunity for networking;
> general assessment of the training.
The calculation of the result is made in accordance with the following methodology:
- the grades received per each indicator are added together;
- the values are divided by the total number of respondents to the questions for each indicator (an arithmetic average is calculated for each indicator separately);
- all averages obtained from each indicator are added together and then divided by the number of indicators (6).
The calculated arithmetic score provides information on the degree of the overall satisfaction of the participants in the training.
The process of conducting such a survey and obtaining feedback is primarily focused on receiving data regarding the created capacity in the local leaders and stakeholders.
The establishment of the usefulness and whether the focus of the training towards the needs of the participants are structured properly provides opportunities for their timely correction and expansion of the information provided according to the needs of the students and guaranteeing the highqualitative development and implementation of the strategy for local development
References:
1. Regulation № 22 of 14 December 2015 for the implementation of sub-measure 19.2 „Implementation of Operations within the Community-Led Local Development Strategies" of Measure 19 „Communities-Led Local Development" by the Rural Development Program for the period 2014-2020.
2. Regulation № 16 of the July 30, 2015 for the implementation of sub-measure 19.1 „Assistance preparatory" of measure 19 from the 2014-2020 Rural Development Program2020 r.
3. Guidelines for local stakeholders regarding the community-led local development//http: //ec.europa.eu/regional policy/sources/docgener/informat/2014 /guidance_clld_local_actors_bg.pdf
4. Rural Development Program 2014-2020 // http://www.dfz.bg/bg/prsr-2014-2020/prsr--2014-2020/
5. Appendixes to the Rural Development Program 2014-2020.// http://www.dfz.bg/bg/prsr-2014-2020/prsr--2014-2020/
6. Guidance on Community-led Local Development in European Structural and Investment Funds // http://prsr.government.bg/index.php/bg/sections/l2/25
