Community-led local development, abbreviated as CLLD, is an approach in which the use of part of the funds is decided by a local partnership based on its own strategy, not by a central authority. It rests on the assumption that people living in an area know its needs better than an official in the capital. It is implemented through local action groups and can combine funds from several funds at once, which makes it possible to finance projects that would not fit into a single programme. For municipalities and small businesses it means more accessible support with lower administrative burden. Its weakness tends to be a smaller allocation and the difficulty of coordinating the partnership, which must remain functional throughout the whole programming period. For an applicant it is therefore important to know whether their municipality belongs to one of these groups, and with what focus.
See also: Local Action Group, Integrated Territorial Investment (ITI), Partnership Council.
