involved in rural development activities. The development barriers emanating from a wide-
spread reluctance to become involved in collective action have thus been circumvented but
not overcome. Furthermore, the involvement of local governments has become unstable over
time, which has led to a lack of coordination within the partnership. Finally, while a market-
ing network for peasant farmers could be established, the demand potential in the region has
its limits. For this reason, bigger farms must still look for marketing or processing outlets be-
yond the regional network.
The impact this true bottom-up initiative has made since its foundation as a telephone coop-
erative in the early 1990s is impressive. However, it should not be overlooked to what extent
this success is due to specific local circumstances. In particular, the availability of (a few)
leader personalities and their willingness to voluntarily contribute to public development
goals has been of pivotal importance in Dolina Strugu. This latter success factor is often cru-
cial, but hard to transplant to other regions.
Nevertheless, similar initiatives in other regions are conceivable. An impetus can emanate
from governmental side within the scope of rural development measures like the former
Community Initiative LEADER+ (European Commission 2000). Such decentralized policy
measures combine the public and the private sector by implementing so-called "local action
groups" in different regions, who consist of local government members, local businesses and
local NGOs. Local action groups constitute institutions, where local actors formulate regional
development plans and decide about the spending of public sources on different projects,
whereas all private respectively public-private investments require co-payments by the actors
involved. However, to establish such initiatives a broad involvement of residents and com-
mercial institutions like banks is needed to respond to local problems and to establish a close
cooperative environment for local actors. Decentralized measures gain in importance in the
rural development policy of the EU. This is true, if one considers that the LEADER approach
received an own 'axis' in the new European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development
(EAFRD), which supports the EU rural development in 2006 - 2013 (CEC 2005).
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