Community facilitation of problem structuring and decision making processes: Experiences from the EU LEADER+ programme

This paper reports on the work carried out supporting a rural community in Denmark under the LEADER+ programme. This is a programme that supports development in particularly vulnerable rural regions of the European countries members of EU. It supports creative and innovative projects that can contribute to long-term and sustainable development in these regions. The main tasks have been the organisation and facilitation of conferences and workshops to structure the problematic situation of identifying and designing innovative projects for the development of the community and to support decision making processes related to the agreement on action plans. Learning to design, plan, manage and facilitate conferences and workshops have also being another central activity. The main purpose of these conferences and workshops was not only problem structuring and decision making in connection with community development but also the transfer of facilitation skills and appropriate methods to the community.