The ELIKONAS – PARNASSOS DEVELOPMENT SA company and local authorities of Viotia Region organised the informative conference titled:”Investing in Development & Innovation in Rural Areas.

Held on Saturday, December 9, 2017, at the “Christos Palaiologos” Conference Center of Livadia, the conference aimed at presenting the axis of the new Local Development Program CLLD LEADER “.

LEADER Initiative (Liaisons Entre Actions de Developement de l ‘Economie Rurale – links between actions for the development of the rural economy) in Greece, which was the beginning of a new approach to rural development policy. Through LEADER, integrated and multidisciplinary development was built, while local communities were given the opportunity to design and choose their own way and their “path” of development.

The LEADER initiative, following the successful experience of three programming periods (LEADER I, II and PLUS (+)), reached a maturity level allowing rural areas to apply the LEADER approach more widely under RDP Axis 4, serving key objectives.

Thus, within the framework of the LEADER approach, local programs of integrated and multidisciplinary nature are implemented in well-defined rural areas. The development and implementation of these programs takes place through the bottom-up approach by local public-private partnerships (LAGs) active in each area, aware of its potentialities and difficulties and representative its public and private bodies.

Through Axis 4 “Implementing the LEADER Approach”, actions are under way to:

• increasing the added value of agricultural and forestry products,
• diversification into non-agricultural activities,
• in supporting the creation and development of micro-enterprises,
• encouraging tourist activities,
• generate creative services for the economy and the rural population,
• operate in the renovation and development of villages,
• conservation and upgrading of the rural heritage.

At the same time, cooperation and networking between regions, institutions and sectors will be strengthened in order to develop new ways and processes to address the problems of selected rural areas.

Amongst the distinghised guest from the government, the municipal and the regional bodies, Georges Perot was invited as a representative of MESO Events and ASBL EURICCA to address participants on the sustainable development of the action programme, emphasizing on the importance of strong CCI promotional needs, event/cultural marketing and branding needs.

At the same time, it was an opporutnity to make a correlation regarding cooperation and networking between regions, institutions and private stakeholders and the possibility to strengthen their collaboration in order to develop new ways and processes, to address the problems of selected rural areas.

More information @ Elikonas Development Organization