LEADER is a rural development method based on a participative approach, which was tailored in 1991 as a complement to the traditional common agricultural policy (CAP) measures. One of its most important objectives is to reduce the differences between rural and urban areas by building on local knowledge and potential. The aim of the present paper is to identify what are the most important characteristics of the LAGs that can counterbalance the existing economic disparities in the rural regions. The research was conducted in the northwest development region of Romania (2014–2020 programming period), using the principal component analysis and the hierarchical cluster analysis. Two types of data were collected: indicators of performance, such as the number of projects contracted and jobs created, were used to assess the success of the method, while the territorial and LAG characteristics were used to explain these results. The findings confirm the presence of an unequal distribution of LEADER support in favor of the most urbanized and developed areas. However, the results also show that the experience and economic and administrative capacity of LAGs could help counterbalance the influence of the territorial features previously mentioned, and therefore to reduce the gap between them and the more developed groups.

中文翻译：

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在罗马尼亚实施社区主导的地方发展欧盟方法中平衡发展地域差异

LEADER 是一种基于参与式方法的农村发展方法，该方法于 1991 年量身定制，作为对传统共同农业政策 (CAP) 措施的补充。其最重要的目标之一是通过利用当地知识和潜力来减少农村和城市地区之间的差异。本文的目的是确定 LAG 最重要的特征是什么，可以抵消农村地区现有的经济差距。研究在罗马尼亚西北开发区（2014-2020规划期）进行，采用主成分分析和层次聚类分析。收集了两种类型的数据：绩效指标，例如承包的项目数量和创造的就业机会，用于评估该方法的成功，而领土和 LAG 特征被用来解释这些结果。调查结果证实，LEADER 支持的分布不均，偏向于最城市化和最发达的地区。然而，结果也表明，LAGs 的经验以及经济和行政能力可以帮助抵消前面提到的领土特征的影响，从而缩小他们与更发达群体之间的差距。