25 Years of the Leader Initiative as European Rural Development Policy: The Case of Extremadura (SW Spain)

For 25 years the rural development policy has been implemented through the LEADER Approach in the EU to reduce differences between rural and urban areas, as well as to satisfy the basic needs of the population. In this paper, Extremadura is analysed, which is a Spanish region where LEADER has been applied since its inception in 1991. The objective is to assess if the distribution of rural development aids has been influenced by the diverse demographic and socioeconomic realities that Extremadura presents from the analysis of variables that represent these realities on the territory through a GIS. Following this methodology, it has been noticed that the largest investments have been executed in the most developed rural areas of the region.