Theme 1: Economic Development and Job Creation

This theme focuses on ensuring the economy of Offaly is robust, using the County’s innovation, creativity, and connections to respond to emerging employment needs and develop future opportunities.

Local objectives include:

• Offaly’s Rural Economy: Ensuring the economy can respond to emerging enterprise and employment needs.
• Regenerative Tourism: Working toward Offaly becoming a leading exemplar in regenerative tourism, contributing to a vibrant tourism economy that supports rural regeneration.
• Developing Offaly’s Social Economy: Enabling Offaly’s Social Economy (e.g., through cooperatives and social enterprises) to achieve its social and environmental goals, particularly those that meet otherwise unmet local needs.

Theme 2: Rural Infrastructure and Social Inclusion

This theme concentrates on improving community resilience, building capacity, and ensuring all residents have access to opportunities, particularly those most excluded.

Local objectives include:

• Building healthy and sustainable communities: Using the Smart Villages process, based on inclusive and participatory practices and supports, to develop communities throughout Offaly.
• Maximising the Impact of LEADER: Using LEADER supports to animate communities and build their capacity to leverage additional supports and investment.
• Including those most excluded: Providing capacity building and development support to those most isolated, those directly impacted by the peat transition process, and those who traditionally have not engaged with the LEADER programme.
• Offaly Youth Population: Stimulating actions that improve access to social, recreational, and self-development infrastructure, and local employment opportunities to incentivize youth to remain in or return to Offaly.

Theme 3: Sustainable Development of the Rural Environment and Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation

This theme focuses on utilising and protecting Offaly’s unique natural assets while actively responding to the challenges posed by climate change.

Local objectives include:

• Offaly’s Landscape – People and Places: Celebrating Offaly’s landscape, people, and places through strategies that enhance quality of life, engage broad participation, and serve as a stimulus for sustainable rural development.
• Offaly – A Learning Lab: Supporting Offaly to become a learning lab for climate change mitigation and adaptation, where communities share strategies and are supported as equal partners in this process.