Resourcing regeneration activities is a major challenge for community-led initiatives. At the same time, reaching out and engaging with new audiences has never been more important. The next 10 years will be critical in this regard, as efforts to fight climate change and ecological degradation intensify.
In the EU, the European Green Deal (EGD) establishes an ambitious policy framework aimed at accelerating the transition across all sectors. All EU programmes and initiatives, including Community-Led Local Development (CLLD) and Smart Villages, must now ensure alignment with EGD goals. This presents a challenge for the stakeholders concerned, but also an important opportunity to better fund and support transition processes at the local community-level.
CLLD already has an EU-wide implementation infrastructure (in excess of 3000 local action groups, national networks in all countries, etc..) and will provide an estimated €10 billion in funding for local-level initiatives over the next 7 years. Smart Villages provides an EU-wide framework to empower communities to harness technology and social capital in response to societal challenges.
ECOLISE is hosting an online Communities for Future session in December 2021 on CLLD and Smart Villages. This session will be an opportunity
- to learn more about the new CLLD and Smart Village programmes (2022-2027);
- to learn about ongoing opportunities to participate in the planning and implementation of these programmes, especially through concrete action at local level;
- to access funding and other supports to help resource your work and the work of communities you engage with.
During the session you will hear from experts on CLLD as well as existing ECOLISE members and partners that are already accessing CLLD funding to support their work.
You will also hear more about a new ECOLISE Community of Practice to support enhanced collaboration between ECOLISE members/partners and CLLD and Smart Village stakeholders.
Join us to discover more!
Read more about the session here
