(23 March 2022) – The Commission adopted programmes under the instrument for pre-accession assistance for rural development (IPARD) for Albania, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey, with a budget of €112, €97, €288 and €430 million respectively.
This EU support, together with national public and private contributions, are expected to generate in total over €2 billion investment in rural areas of Western Balkans and Turkey.
The programmes provide the basis for EU support in the field of agriculture, rural development and food security for the period 2021-27, particularly important in the current geo-political context.
To achieve these objectives, the beneficiary countries have at their disposal 13 measures established at the EU level. The four beneficiary countries will make use of 10 out of the 13 available measures.
One of the measures (Measure 5 – “Implementation of local development strategies – LEADER approach”) supports local action groups, representing a wide range of multi-sectoral private and public partners, in implementing their bottom-up local development strategies, which contributes to economic, social, cultural and environmental improvements of rural areas.