Rural Network NI attends Scottish Leader Conference

25 June 2010

Martin McDonald from the Rural Network for Northern Ireland was invited as a key speaker at a recent Scottish Leader Conference in Aberdeen.

The event, which was attended by around 100 representatives from LEADER LAGs, was hosted by Rural Aberdeenshire Local Action Group, whose chairperson James Knowles opened the conference by outlining the successes of LEADER in Aberdeenshire - from a standing start, they have achieved £2.5million of funding committed, supporting 80 projects. He also commented that LAGs need to recognise that risk taking is part of what has made LEADER a success and he called for a less risk averse approach in future.

Peter Russell from the Scottish Government also presented and explained how LEADER and the Scottish Rural Development Programme support the Scottish Governments objectives related to sustainable economic growth as laid out in the National Performance Framework. At the mid-term point of the Programme, half the available funding has been committed or spent. For LEADER, the average commitment is 38%, with considerable variation between LAGs.

Martin McDonald then provided an overview of the LEADER approach in Northern Ireland, its history, current context, achievements and barriers. A copy of Martins presentation is available to download here.

Gail Merriman from the Welsh Assembly Government and Gerallt Llewellyn Jones from Mentor Mon each gave an account of the Leader experience in Wales, from a government and rural development practitioner perspective.

For further details on the conference and to view other speaker presentations please log onto the Scotland National Rural Network website

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