Evaluation support study of the costs and benefits of the implementation of LEADER : executive summary

The objective of the assignment is to assess the added value of LEADER and the extent to which the increased costs of implementing the LEADER approach are justified by its additional benefits. This overall objective is broken down into the following working objectives: Assess the costs incurred for the implementation and management of local development strategies (LDS) and the consistency with the actions implemented (i.e., relevance with respect to territorial needs and effectiveness of implemented projects relative to LDS objectives); Assess the additional costs of LEADER implementation through comparison with non-LEADER measures. This allows to use costs of non-LEADER measures as a baseline to examine the additional costs of LEADER; Assess the additional benefits (i.e., added value) of LEADER implementation in terms of improvements in social capital and in local governance at the local level; Assess the additional benefits of LEADER projects in terms of enhanced results compared to similar projects implemented through measures of Rural Development Programmes (RDP), i.e., not under LEADER, if comparable measures are available and eligible. The geographical scope of the analysis is the EU27 and the United Kingdom until December 2020. The analysis covers the 2014-2022 Rural Development Programming period.