The Subregional Office for Central and Eastern Europe of FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations), at the initiative of some people representing some public and civil institutions from Cluj  organised the workshop on 29-30th of May 2001, called " Institutional Capacity Building for Agriculture and Rural Development Related Groups and Organisations in Transylvania-Romania" in collaboration with the Babes-Bolyai University from Cluj-Napoca and the Hungarian Economists' Society of Romania. 

The event had a scientific character, with lectures about the problematic questions of the rural environment but at the same time it was an occasion for the representatives of the governmental and civil institutions coming from central, regional, county and settlement level as well as for the specialists from the Consulting Agencies and the professors of the University to meet, know each other and most of all to exchange opinions. The work has been done not only in the conference room but also on the field in the communes of Sic and Taga. 

In order to understand what justified the organising of such a workshop, with so diverse partners, we have to refer, on the one hand, to the concrete situation of Romania regarding the needs for development of the villages, on the other hand, to some principles practised in the countries of the European Union in this context. 

Romania has a special position in South - Eastern Europe, due to the fact that the area and the population of the rural settlements are much greater than in the neighbouring countries, the only country that exceeds us in absolute values due to its great dimensions in Poland. 

The different rural areas of Romania have significant regional differences that justify the Transylvanian approach of the main problem during the workshop obviously in the context of the whole. Among the general characteristics of the rural environment, we must mention the prevailing of the agricultural sector from the point of view of employment (about 36% of the active population), the existence of a weak material infrastructure, human and institutional development, the existence of a subsistent agricultural system of production, a bad functioning of the input and output markets, of the capital and labour markets etc. 

This stadium of the rural areas imposes a well elaborated policy of agriculture and development, taking advantage as effective as possible of the opportunities offered by the European Union (SAPARD, PHARE) and other international organisations (World Bank, FAO etc.). From the delevered lectures and most of all from the interventions of the participants, from the discussions, resulted the fact that the needs of the rural areas are multiple, and that the need for support of the communes - or should we say - the request for support is high but the capacity of the rural environment to attract external nor repayable funds is low because there is no efficient co-operation in order to elaborate some integrated and viable programmes of development. One of the critical points of the incapacity of the rural regions of conceiving, elaborating and implementing programmes of development is the weak partnership between all the stakeholders of these development programmes and projects. 

Among the fundamental principles of the politics of the European Union regarding the rural development formulated in the Declaration of Cork, we can find the necessity of integrated approach of the rural development. It is requested on the behalf of the pre-closing up process the application of a complex policy of rural development that has to comprise all the social, economical and cultural activities in an integrated way. 

Another principle refers to the necessity of increasing the competence and the efficacy of local and regional administrations as well as well as the efficacy of the civil organisations through technical support, training, better communication, the supply of helpful information by development of partnerships. 

The reader of this volume will be able to conclude upon the fact that neither the request for integrated approach nor the one for partnership is yet enough in the sight of those who should play a decisive role in the development of the Romanian rural area. There can be felt a strong lack of partnerships and the vision of elaborating integrated programmes didn't characterise the participants of the workshop. The attentive and critical reading of the materials comprised in the present volume show that we still carry the burden of general, abstract formulations, we use commonplaces that we have used to in the past. We list formless wishes, without priorities, without decomposing these in actions, without mentioning the responsibilities, without the complex and integrated approach of the problem of the rural areas from the point of view of economy and social situation of the country. Even where it seems that it's known what has to be done it doesn't result the way to proceed. We already learned the lesson regarding the elements of a strategy of development, but there are not mentioned the qualitative elements, the co-operation of people, partnership creation, the modalities through which we can generate voluntary actions, political lobby etc.

Our conclusion cannot be other than we have to learn much from the ones that have accumulated experience in the field of project management, programmes, that already formed integrated visions in programming and we owe thanks to the representatives of the FAO, and most of all to the specialist in rural development, to Mr. Fritz Rembold, who conducted this workshop and who, by his lecture, made us understand how much we have to learn. 

It was a first step, when all of us, the representatives of state and civil organisations' from all the region, academic professors and researchers, consulting practitioners, who had in common the interest for rural development met, got acquainted and informed each other about the realisations and difficulties of our work. 

Even if my gain would have been only the understanding of the necessity of further learning I would say that the volunteer effort made for organising this workshop would have succeded. But in reality I gained much more, I become richer by being acquainted with some future partners and I met some wonderful young people who organised this prestigious manifestation in a professional manner. 

The FAO specialists offered us much: besides the financial support of the workshop and the presentation of the informational synthetic materials, gave us the hope that we have some valuable partners in the field of technical assistance for preparing the actions to receive the SAPARD funds intended for the development of the rural areas and for the reorganisation of the Romanian agriculture in the pre-closing up process. At the same time we started the preparations for learning the lesson of elaborating and implementing of the partnership integrated programmes, the condition to be able to benefit of the Structural Funds for the modernisation of the Romanian economy, after we become members of the European Union.