We at ECOLISE think it is time to bring the voice of community-led initiatives into EU policy more strongly. Together with partners, we aim to make a call for transformational regional and local development policies, which enable a widespread community-led response to the multifaceted social and ecological crisis.
We invite you to become part of this policy positioning process that will target EU policies such as the European Green Deal and LEADER/Community-led Local Development as potential catalysts for a regenerative societal transformation that puts communities at the centre.
How do we find a united voice within the ECOLISE network? And with core partners such as ELARD (the LEADER associations which represents 3,000+ Local Action Groups), the European Rural Parliament and the European Economic and Social Committee? This is what we want to experiment with this year.
ECOLISE has done a lot of advocacy work in recent years - from the 2019 Status Report to the “Pathways” presented in 2021. Our plan is to first create a baseline from these existing papers and projects to position ECOLISE towards the European Green Deal and then gather inputs from members and partners. In this regard, we’d like to start a consultation process on the policy paper baseline with you, starting on Wednesday 28 September 3 - 5 pm CET (online) and lasting until 1 November.
In this process, we aim to answer key questions such as:
- What is the potential impact of community-led initiatives with regards to mitigation and adaptation to the planetary crisis?
- How can we ensure that the policies and funds within the upcoming EU funding period (2023-2027) provide the means to enable communities to tackle the crisis in a timely and socially just manner?
- How can EU policies, such as the European Green Deal and the LEADER/Community-led Local Development initiative, be harnessed to enable transformational local and regional development? What limitations and barriers exist within these frameworks?
The outcomes of this process will be communicated to EU policy stakeholders in an online event in the week of 28 November - 1 December, and will be the starting point of a wider advocacy campaign in 2023.
Please save the date, register and join us for this kick-off event!
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