The EU's community initiative, LEADER, aims to give impetus to rural actors and help them reflect on the potential of their area in a longer-term perspective. The initiative aims to implement novel integrated strategies for sustainable development and to try out new approaches to rural development.

The basic approaches of LEADER are:

• Each region has its specifics that need to be discovered and developed as opportunities for an independent profile and a stronger identification of the population with their region - Territorial Approach.
• Seizing such opportunities requires broad citizen participation with democratic rules of the game. New organizational structures and personal initiative are required - bottom-up approach.
• Private and public actors jointly develop a strategy for reducing their region's development gap, finding market niches and mobilizing private capital - Local Development Strategy.
• Closer relations between regions and cross-sectoral cooperation promote diversification of the local economy and social exchange - Integrated approach.

Guideline Leader project support

The Landkreis Börde supports rural development in a special way by participating in the financing of certain Leader projects. The funding is based on the "Richtlinie des Landkreises Börde zur Förderung von Projekten, die der Verwirklichung von Leader-Konzepten dienen" (Leader project funding), which came into force on 01.07.2009.

Leader action groups in the rural Landkreis Börde

German Networking Agency for Rural Areas

Leader action group Börde

Leader action group Bördeland

Leader action group Colbitz-Letzlinger Heide

Leader Action Group Flechtinger Höhenzug

Leader Action Group Around the Drömling