Concretely, the EPLD project wanted to exchange good practices between French, Estonian and Serbian partners in terms of mobilizing local European actors by relying on three national networks of rural actors engaged in the LEADER approach in order to be able to better support the actors of the national networks concerned in their learning processes necessary for the implementation of this approach and to allow the partner networks to become structured. The targeted actions should enable the three networks involved to promote mutual knowledge and contribute to the development of innovative approaches and solutions in terms of the implementation of local development led by local actors which will be disseminated to all local actors involved in the networks. They must make it possible to promote the development of participatory democracy at the local level. This project was intended to provide an increase in the skills and expertise of each partner which will make it possible to develop skills indirectly to a larger target group of local actors, currently members or active in each partner network.
While the project partner countries were already implementing the local development methodology led by local actors, supported by the European Union in order to involve local populations and actors and promote inclusive participatory democracy, the EPLD project responded to a concrete request for the exchange of knowledge and good practices from three countries which are at different stages in the appropriation of this methodology. The French partner, at the origin of the European initiatives, and the Estonian partner, involved since the 2000s, wanted to be able to compare their knowledge and find new practices in order to adapt it to new problems in the rural territories under development. The Serbian partner, a candidate for membership, wanted to integrate a European cooperation project and develop a methodology relying on experienced European networks. The exchanges organized as part of the project and the different expertise of the networks thus enabled each participant to develop new skills in this area thanks to mutual knowledge and the exchange of good practices.