Past evaluations have shown that one of the main advantages of local development programmes, like LEADER and Axis 4, is that they help to provide relatively fragmented communities with an organisational platform, a voice and a channel of communication to those areas of government and policy that affect their future. This involves operating at two different levels, each of which will receive attention in this part of the web.

Firstly, groups have to consider how their own governance structures (the FLAG) relates to other organisations at both local and wider levels. For example, how do they coordinate with Producer Organisations, local and regional resource management systems, LEADER groups, the bodies intervening in broader maritime policy and integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) and so on. 

Secondly, FLAGs need to understand how broader policy developments such as the reform of the CFP, trends in Cohesion Policy, Integrated Maritime Policy and so on can affect the strategy in their area. But at the same time, to justify EU funding, they also need to translate the lessons they learn through local experimentation into policy recommendations that are transferrable to other European contexts.

This section of the web will, therefore, be divided into two major sections:

• The governance of fisheries areas (partnership structures, cooperation with LEADER, local fisheries management systems, links with local Maritime Reserves and Natura 2000,  ICZM, Integrated Maritime Policy, regional advisory and planning bodies…..)
• Policy and fisheries areas (reform of the CFP, regimes for SSF, rights based management systems, Cohesion policy and local development, environmental policy, Integrated Maritime Policy……)

The exchange of information on this part of the website is likely to become particularly important in the period leading up to decisions on the future of EU policy and towards the end of the Axis 4 programme when the groups have time to analyse and communicate their results.