Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol Stakeholder participation in planning rural development strategies: Using backcasting to support Local Action Groups in complying with CLLD requirements Roberta Sisto a, ⁎ , Antonio Lopolito b , Mathijs van Vliet c a Department of Economics, University of Foggia, Largo Papa Giovanni Paolo II, 1-71121 Foggia, Italy b Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, University of Foggia, Via Napoli, 25-71122 Foggia, Italy c Wageningen University, Public Administration and Policy Group, Wageningen, The Netherlands ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Community-Led Local Development planning Backcasting Local Action Groups Rural development planning Participatory approaches Stakeholders ABSTRACT In advanced countries, rural areas are a complex web of social, political and historical factors. In addition, several kinds of uncertainties are usually present. As a consequence, frequent mismatches arise in practise be- tween measures and rural development goals and priorities. To overcome this pitfall, a key factor is represented by the acquisition of relevant knowledge from local stakeholders. In line with this idea, the European Commission encourages the Community-Led Local Development approach delivered by Local Action Groups. The aim of the study is to show the suitability of a participatory approach, namely backcasting, to the outline of the Local Action Plan of a specific LAG. Within this framework, a participative backcasting experience was carried out with the stakeholders of the LAG ‘Daunia Rurale’ in order to detect their needs and the strategic actions to carry out. The study provided stakeholders and policy makers with a rational approach and an op- erational tool to recognise the needs and design the actions for the specific endogenous potential of the in- vestigated area. The proposed method proved to be rather innovative in CLLD contexts for the detection of expressed needs of local stakeholders and the definition of the LAP. We submitted some questionnaires to stakeholders and looking at their results (either at the ones on the niceness of the workshop or at the strategy-validation ones), some encouraging remarks can be drawn. Backcasting has been particularly helpful to local stakeholders and decision makers in identifying the steps to give a clear direction to rural development. What we learn from this case study represents a valuable outcome that can support practitioners, policy makers and researchers in understanding how to design medium- to long- term planning development strategies in rural areas. 1. Introduction In advanced countries, rural areas are a complex web of social, political and historical factors and processes in which the various groups of actors attempt to achieve outcomes that are commensurate with their aims (Terluin, 2003). In addition, several kinds of un- certainties (technology, market dynamics and economic constraints) are usually present while designing rural development plans (either at regional or Local Action Group level), where a number of different actors, processes and requirements need to be managed and included in the planning. As a consequence, frequent mismatches arise in practise between measures and rural development goals and priorities. To overcome this pitfall, a key factor is represented by the acqui- sition of relevant knowledge from local stakeholders, usually embedded and tacit. This can be achieved adopting participatory approaches that represent an opportunity to incorporate the perspectives and priorities of the local people (Bijlsma et al., 2011), reducing the risks associated with uncertainty and imperfect knowledge. In line with this idea, the European Commission (2014) encourages the Community-Led Local Development (CLLD) approach that focuses on integrated area-based strategies for specific sub-regional territories. This approach is com- munity led in the sense that it is delivered by Local Action Groups (LAG) made of representatives of local public and private actors. As the vast array of literature on this topic indicates, there has been recent growth in experimentation with participatory methods (Holmberg and Robert, 2000; Kok et al., 2010; Ghişa et al., 2011; Stratigea and Giaoutzi, 2012; Sisto et al., 2016; Sisto et al., 2017). One of the most suitable methods for complex contexts as rural areas is https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2017.11.022 Received 26 July 2017; Received in revised form 9 November 2017; Accepted 9 November 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: Roberta.sisto@unifg.it (R. Sisto), antonio.lopolito@unifg.it (A. Lopolito). Land Use Policy 70 (2018) 442–450 0264-8377/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T