The official launch of the 3 prospective LAGs was held on Tuesday 28th July at the Mgarr Local Council. The launch was addressed by Minister George Pullicino and Hon. Chris Said. The three Chairpersons of the foundations all signed the agreement which allocates Euro 90,000 to each of the foundations.
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In April 2009 a call from the Rural Developmetn Department for measure 341 was issued. This call with a budget of Euro 450,000 had the intention to recognize up to a maximum of five Local Action Groups (LAGs) in the form of a Foundation for the creation of a local development strategy for each LAG. The application of the foundation GALXLOKK was approved and the foundation GAL XLOKK together with other two foundations, was alloted the sum of €90,000 for the creation of the strategy.
Maypole Bakery was the last private member to join the foundation. Mr. Mario Debono in representance of the Qormi bakers was presented to the GalXlokk members in the meeting held on the 10th June of 2006. All the members of the foundation gave a warm welcome to the new member and wished him good luck in his new adventure.
Read more..."European Country Inn" was the first official event organised by the Foundation GalXlokk in collaboration with the Gal Meridaunia. The Italian Lag was represented by its director Mr. Daniele Borelli together with GEIE president Dr. Alberto Casorla. Present here in Malta were as well Mr. Giuliano Volpe (Dean of the University of Foggia), Cosimo Sallustio (Director of the Leader+ Programme in the Puglia region) and Elena Ranieri (International Relationships Officer at the University of Puglia).
During the meeting of the 10th June 2009 held at the Zejtun Local Council, a letter received by the Kalkara Local Council was read to the members of the GalXlokk board.
A letter received by the Zurrieq Local Council was read during the foundation's meeting held on the 2oth of April 2009.
Qormi & Qrendi were the latest 2 members to be approved as Gal Xlokk members. Qormi will be represented during the Gal Xlokk meetings by their Mayor Mr. Jesmond Aquilina while Qrendi will be respresented by their respective Mayor Mr. Carmelo Falzon.
Leader: A new approach for Maltese Rural Funding
Since its inception in 1991, the Community initiative Leader became widely recognized as having been a successful and innovative pilot instrument to mobilise local actors in a bottom-up, territorial and integrated approach to pursue local development in rural areas.
A distinctive feature of Leader is the implementation of integrated development programmes for local rural areas, drawn up and implemented by broad-based local partnerships, called Local Action Groups (LAGs)
The New Leader will play at least three main roles that of:
Leader as a Tool for Endogenous Local Development
The main advantage of bottom-up approaches is that the LAG can mobilise more local resources for the development process. This happens both because local actors have a better knowledge of the resources opportunities available and because they have a greater sense of ownership and commitment to the projects.
The Leader Axis as a governance tool for building the organisational capacity of rural community
Leader local action groups in other member states have played a major role in bringing together all the public, private and civil organisations operating in a given territory and progressively creating the methods and knowledge of working together for common goals.
Leader will help Maltese actors to generate a sense of local identity which goes beyond narrow village boundaries.
Leader will increase the organisational capacity of rural communities (reinforcement of the local management and project development capacity). It also means developing trust, long term structures, experience and expertise, achieved through help under the measure “acquisition of skills”.
The Leader Axis as a tool for stimulating innovation
Leader can play a valuable role in stimulating new and innovative approaches to the development of rural areas. Such innovation is encouraged by allowing LAGs wide margins of freedom and flexibility in making decisions about the actions they want to support. This has a major impact on the design of the eligibility rules in the programmes.
Innovation needs to be understood in a wide sense. Innovation is not necessarily defined in terms of hi tech novelties. It is simply seen as finding new solutions to an areas needs. In this sense every area, no matter, how undeveloped, can benefit from an innovation strategy adapted to its most pressing problems. Innovation may also mean the introduction of a new product, a new process or a new organisation or a new market.
Leader in Malta
Leader is a new concept in Malta as no Leader approach measure where adopted during the old programming period (2004-2006). Maltese Rural areas will benefit from Leader under the new Rural Development Program (2007-2013).
Local Action Groups must be set up in the rural areas as to develop and implement a Local Development Strategy in the selected territory. The territory chosen must be coherent with a critical mass greater than 5,000 and not exceeding the 150,000 inhabitants. An exception to this rule is given in case of 1 LAG is formed for all the island of Malta. Representatives involved in the LAG must be both from the Public and Private sectors. Local Councils and other Government entities will represent the Public Sector, while the social economic partners and other civil society will be represented by farmers, rural women, youths, NGOs and other private organisations willing to take part.
A maximum of 3 LAGs will be supported under the EAFRD, two for Malta and one for Gozo. LAGs recognised by the Managing Authority, must implement the Local Strategy developed by them for the territory. To put into practice the bottom-up approach LAGs will be responsible for the selection of the project by setting up a Decision Body formed from the representatives involved in the LAG. As stated by the EAFRD regulation private representatives on the Decision Body must be in majority.
A number of Thematic Working Groups are formed by the LAG as to support the Decision Body in their decisions. The Working Group is formed from region experts concerning the project. The Working Groups can also be formed with the aim to guide applicants in their projects.
The second group will be heading to Bari on the 20th of October. A group of 10 active members will be attending to various seminars and workshops held in the Puglia region.
The group will stay in Bari for 7 days where the members will have the opportunity to visit various agritourism sites, enjoy the beauties of the Gargano and view the works of the already established Gal Meridaunia.
The foundation GalXlokk believes that its members are the base to success so it will be working to form its members properly to ensure the best performance in the Leader Initiative.
Updates and photos of all the study trips will be available online on the foundation's blog.
