Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Local Action Groups in the Pilsen Region

Today's time period is renowned for a great percentage of people moving out from the cities to rural areas. One of many reasons is a better social and cultural environment of inhabitants. Local action groups (LAG), on which evaluation is focus in bachelor thesis, positively contribute to solving the stated issue. The main objectives are the evaluation and analysis of their activities in the matter of the Pilsen region. The theoretical part contains definitions of basic terms connected with the issues of local action groups on a national level. The identification of the local action groups in the range of the whole Czech Republic is focused on their reasons of commencement, legal terms regarded to them, history, and the possibilities for financing, a variety of activities and other characteristic features. Subsequently, the selected local action groups are analyzed as a major topic of this thesis. The practical part focuses on the evaluation which derives from nine local action groups located in the Pilsen region. The NS MAS evaluative scale is used for the evaluation. For the evaluation, certain indicators are selected like time for their establishment, amounts of members of the groups, financing, and other. Subsequently, a synthesis of the collected data, the very comparison, and evaluation of the effectiveness of functioning and benefits for the region is executed. Basic statistics is used to evaluate the outcomes and the outcomes are presented graphically. The conclusion of the thesis dedicates to strengths, weaknesses and other opportunities of operation of LAGs in the Pilsen region