Building local capacity for rural development and environmental management

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Building local capacity for rural development
environmental management Wolfgang
Suske Umweltbundesamt Wien
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Today

• Many local working groups involved in Regional
  Development Strategies
• Successful story of LEADER-approach (800 LAGs in
  EU)
• Mis-understandings fights with the (first)
  NATURA 2000 approach
• Positive experiences from steering groups and
  platforms that have been established
• Positive effects of narrow and deep
  agri-environment schemes as well as broad and
  shallow (horizontal) schemes
• Many good examples of local activities (e.g. in
  rural development)

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There is considerable frustration that we are
powerless in the face of worldwide globalization
which negatively influences the vitality of rural
areas
Globalization
Local capacity
There is a realistic option, which is that a
region works against the trend of the global
market and becomes a vital small vital unit with
its own set of principles
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Why is local capacity important?
Ideas activities
Quality of Life
Practical experiences
Added value, jobs
Natural cultural resources
Local knowledge (stories!)
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Seven holy approaches of LEADER

• Bottom Up approach
• Territorial approach
• Partnership approach
• Multisectoral appraoch
• Innovative approach
• Network approach
• Cooperation approach

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In1970 we learned to fight

• All mayors against a power station in their
  region
• They won!!
• Formation of a regional Working Group
• Important wine-region, famous tourism-
  region, UNESCO World Heritage Site, NATURA
  2000, LEADER

gt They are strong and effective if there is any
opposition gt Its difficult for some local
people to become integrated in the rigid
hierarchy of this group
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We have got a vision

• Group of farmers against Natura 2000
• Formation of a working group
• Preparation of a Vision Fließer Sonnenhänge
  in 10 years
• Devlopment of a local cheese with a Natura
  2000 butterfly on its label

gt They used a conflict situation as a starting
point for good cooperation gt From Vision to
Ideas they did a great job!
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Sitting together does not mean working together

• 1995 5b activities -gt LEADER area
• 2000 First experiences with LAG
• Good start Preparation of strategy
• Difficult working processes only my
  village is important

gt New group open to everyone gt At the
beginning weak cooperation, weak partnership
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Fever curve of a working group Preparation of a
Regional Strategy
1. Result
phases
activity
3.11.
14.1.
6.3.
10.4.
8.5.
30.5.
2.8.
14.11.
10.1.
23.4.
Time (1,5 years)
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Different group phases

• Unborn phase
• Hot phase
• Interesting phase
• Miracle phase
• Burn out phase
• Boring phase
• Sleeping phase
• Dead phase

• Have fun together
• Create many ideas
• Work together
• Be fascinated by your results

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Seven holy approaches of LEADER

• Bottom Up gt (political) decision
• Territorial gt clear conditions
• Partnership gt miracle phases
• Multisectoral gt good facilitation
• Innovative gt miracle phases
• Network gt perfect organisation
• Cooperation gt facilitation, organisation

gt Local capacity is a key element for Rural
Development gt LEADER approach is a useful scheme
for building local capacity gt Sitting together
does not imply a miracle phase.
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Participants of an exciting meeting
The diligent bookkeeper
The loquacious one
The hostile one
The Lazy one
The Shy One
The Queen Bee
The info-seeker
The Antogonist
The Know-it-all
gt Many people are frightened by conflicts gt
Politicians order us to avoid conflicts gt
Conflicts on a local level are sometimes a
pre-requisite for good cooperation
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Support for Romania First Aid Kit

• I expect a silent meeting
• I expect a fight-meeting
• I have a important talk, face to face meeting
  with the mayor
• I have a stakeholder meeting and a camera team
  show up
• I have to present a complicated issue
• I want a project, why should I involve others?
• I want to design an invitation, what to do?
• I had a meeting, how can I know it was a success?
• What can I do if questions arise and I have no
  answer?
• What can I do if I have an answer to questions
  but I do not want to tell it?
• How can I make use of the power of pictures
• How can I gather ideas in an fast and efficient
  way
• How to deal with no interest
• How to deal with different knowledge levels in a
  meeting?
• I am frightened for this conflict. What can I do?
• I need a story for an interview or a leaflet How
  can I get a story from
• What do I do if nobody shows up
• What can I do to attract 1000 people for the next
  meeting
• What I do if the meeting room is far too small

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What can I do if everybody is against me?

• Before you meet your enemy, prepare
  yourself Think about your objectives and
  interests, draw them in a picture
• Start to read books of interest to your
  enemies (e.g. book about how to make
  profit from forests). Buy the newspapers
  they read (e.g. Agriculture and
  Pesticides). Try to understand their
  interests
• Start a role play with your colleague Try
  to put yourself in the place of your enemy.
  Maybe you will see the world with other eyes
• Find the best ten funny arguments against
  you and laugh about them.
• ..

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Support for Germany Free facilitator
Financial or technical support for facilitation
in cooperation projects leader_at_ble.de
gt Training and support for communication
skills gt Supervision and coaching lessons for
working groups
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Why we are here??
Bla Bla Bla
Nature conservation is a very important issue.
But economical aspects are also very important.
And social aspects
WHAT we want to achieve
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Who should take part

• depends on WHAT we want to achieve
• experts, representatives of relevant
  stakeholders
• opinon leaders
• storytellers
• men women
• old young people
• P.S Dont forget to use typical
• Gossip-Places to get useful (!)
• informations

WHO should come
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How many people should take part
As the size of the group grows, more and more
people hold back.
WHO should come
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• Genial Method
• World Coffee
• Exchange of opinions
• Creative atmosphere
• Entertainment
• Everybody talks

HOW we want to work
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7 Conclusions
1. LEADER approach is a very useful tool for
local capacity building 2. We all need to
learn from LEADER - not only from examples of
best practice but also from mistakes and
difficulties 3. Training and support for
communication skills is a MUST for each region
4. An offer of coaching and supervision would be
very useful 5. Building local capacity
should be an indicator for the evaluation of
Rural Development Programmes 6. Support for
regional and local capacity should be a red
line in EU funding.
7. Building local capacity is not only
intelligent but wonderful
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Thank you! wolfgang.suske_at_chello.at